


the tenth home

by readandart222



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Mortal, F/F, F/M, M/M, more to come - Freeform, this isn’t finished at all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7876117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readandart222/pseuds/readandart222
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>burglar alarms, glee, long car rides, and late night ice cream talks.  Lots more to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. burglar alarms, glee, long car rides, and late night ice cream talks

Leo supposed his mistake this time was bothering to pack. The first nine times, he hadn’t packed at all, and the first nine times, he had been caught when he was at least a week and thirty-five miles from the last foster home. But this time, he was caught not long after he left the place.

Not long after being a grand total of 175 minutes.

True, the first nine times he hadn’t planned to run away and then left the plans lying all over the room, with detailed lists of where he would go and how long it should take him.

That was probably part of the reason he’d been caught so quickly. That, and the burglar alarm going off when he left..

And here he was, in the back of the squad car, being taken to his social worker’s office. For the millionth time. He’d even been in this car. See, there was his name, gouged into the plastic of the door with one of the spare screws he always had in his pocket. Leo Valdez.

“Could you stop that?” the police officer said. “I’m trying to drive here.” Leo did his best to stop drumming his fingers on the window. He managed to keep still for about three seconds before his foot started tapping a rhythm on the floor.

God, this car trip was taking ages. Did the car trips always take ages? Leo couldn’t remember, but he was pretty sure they did.

The car stopped for a light, and the police officer turned around to face Leo. “I said, could you STOP THAT.”

“Sorry,” Leo muttered. He tried to get his foot to stop moving. So his fingers started to make pleats in his shirt. And then the foot began tapping again, just for something to do.

He could see the policeman’s shoulders tensing, even through the uniform. He couldn’t see the tightness of his mouth, though, or the way the policeman’s lips were twitching. The light turned green and the car began moving. And the policeman gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Leo began tapping his fingers on the leather of the car seat. How much longer could this take? 

There was nothing to do, and his bag, with its distractions, was tucked away in the trunk.

“COULD YOU CUT THAT OUT ALREADY!” the policeman shouted. “CUT IT OUT!”

“OKAY!” Leo shouted back. “OKAY! I’m ADHD, and bored as hell, and I’m SORRY!” He laced his fingers together and began having a thumb war with himself. Thumb wars really don’t work without a second person. God, this was boring. This was taking soooo long and—hey, why were they turning onto the highway? Where were they going? The social worker had an office in town. They didn’t have to get on a highway to go.

Oh, great. This car ride was about to get a lot longer. This was just fantastic.

 

 

Three very long and excruciatingly boring hours later, the car stopped in front of a house.  
It wasn’t just any house. It was a big house, like a full on mansion. And they had stopped in front of it. Which meant it was Leo’s next foster home.

This was getting better and better.

“Get out.” It was the policeman. He and Leo had had numerous arguments over Leo’s terrible drumming skills that weren’t so terrible—at least to Leo. “Get out. You’re here. Your new home.”

“I don’t like it. What about the social worker?” Leo hated mansion homes. he had been in two, and those were awful. The families were always stuck up and snobby.

“Get. Out. Now.”

Leo got out. He took his stuff from the trunk—it really had been a mistake to pack, now he had no choice of where to go—and took a step towards the house. Mansion. Foster hell.

The car door slammed and drove off as though Leo would chase it. Which he wouldn’t. No way was he getting back into the car.

Leo started walking up to the house. It was very late. All the windows were dark, and he got the feeling that everyone was asleep. As Leo should be.

It probably wouldn’t go over well for him to ring the doorbell. Probably.

Leo yawns hugely. Maybe he should just camp out on the doorstep and have them open the door to him sleeping there. Harry Potter style. Yes, because that would go over so much better than ringing the doorbell. He yawns again, and puts his hand on the door frame. Jesus, he’s tir—HOLY FUCKING COW THAT BUTTON IS THE DOORBELL ISN”T IT. JESUS CHRIST—

“I rang the fucking doorbell. I’m an idiot.”

 

 

 

Piper McLean could not sleep. It may have been because her laptop was open and she was watching Glee. But then again, the only reason she was watching Glee was because she couldn’t sleep. It was an endless cycle.

The episode ended. Piper looked at the clock on her laptop: 2:37. She really should got to sleep. The arrow hovered over the play button of the next episode. Then Piper yawned hugely. 

Okay. Time to go to sleep.

Piper snuggled down under her thick blankets. She had almost fallen asleep when the doorbell rang.

It wasn’t a short ring that could be imagined away. Nope. This was the real deal, a loud ringing that went on and on. Piper sat bolt upright in bed, covers falling aside. Who could be ringing the bell at this ungodly hour of the morning, when only freshman girls who couldn’t sleep were still up and watching Glee? And said freshman girl had just turned off the computer. It really was an ungodly hour of the morning.

The doorbell finally stopped ringing. Piper put her feet in her slippers and stumbled through the dark room, trying not to trip over the piles of clothes she couldn’t see. She staggered down the stairs and to the front door—why oh why was her house this big—and was about to open it when something occurred to her. She felt the darkened coatrack, searching for the slippery material of her favorite snowboarding jacket. She found it and pulled it on over her nightgown. There. This way, whoever was at the door wouldn’t see her boobs through her pajamas. Just as she was zipping it up, the stupid doorbell began ringing again.

“Just shut up! I’m coming!” Piper hissed, walking towards the door. She looked through the peephole, and saw the fish-eyed image of a curly haired boy leaning against the doorframe, clearly snoring. His arm had to be pressing into the doorbell. He didn’t seem to dangerous, so Piper unlatched the door and opened it.

That was when the burglar alarm went off.

 

 

Leo jolted awake. There was an insistent noise, kind of like a burglar alarm. There was a slight pain in his arm, like a lump sticking in there. Like a doorbell.

Everything came rushing back, from running away to being dropped off in front of a mansion to falling asleep against the doorbell. Fuck. The doorbell. It was still ringing.

“Who are you?” There was a girl, standing in the doorway. Her arms were folded across her chest. She seemed to be wearing a snowboarding jacket over her nightgown. “Who are you?” she said again. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“Ahhh….sorry! Wrong address! I’m looking for my new…ahh…foster home, and this definitely isn’t it! Didn’t mean to bother you! I’ll just…uhhh…skedaddle. And if we can forget this ever happened…..” Leo trailed off. The girl looked exactly like his Aunt Rosa did when she was very, very pissed off. And for good reason. He had woken her up in the middle of the night and his excuse was very shoddy. Even to his ears.

“You’re wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re wrong. This is your new foster home. Definitely.”

“Ahhhh….” Leo said, scratching his head. Caught in the lie. Wonderful.

“We have lots of foster kids here. Drew and Lacy and Mitchell and Silena. And now you.” 

Great. Not only was this a rich person’s house, but they had lots of foster kids. And a daughter. Great.

“Piper….” there was a call from inside. “Piper, what on earth are you doing? It’s three AM. Why did the burglar alarm go off?”

The girl—Piper—swore. A man who looked to be in his thirties came up behind her, scowling. 

“Watch your language, missy. Who’re you?”

“Ahhhh…” Leo said. Man, that was all he could say tonight, wasn’t it? Ahhh. Like he was at the fucking dentist.

“He’s a new foster kid,” Piper said.

“What are you doing here at…three AM? Who are you?”

“Leo,” Leo said. “I’m Leo Valdez.”

The man yawned hugely. “Well, I’m going back to bed. Piper, show the kid to the couch, and turn off the burglar alarm. We’ll deal with all the technicalities tomorrow.” The man walked back to the stairs, leaving Piper and Leo gaping after him.

There was a silence. Then—“So are you coming in?”

 

 

Piper was wide awake again. It was a Saturday night. No need to get up early. That was good, because it took a very long time for her to get frustrated enough at the burglar alarm to scream. When she screamed, Leo came running and turned the stupid thing off in about three seconds.  
He seemed to have been trying to sleep, because his hair was all messed up and he had no shirt.

“Thanks,” Piper said.

“You’re welcome. What’s your name again?”

“Piper. Piper McLean.”

“Okay. Do you have food? I can’t sleep and haven’t eaten since noon…”

Food sounded perfect.

It wasn’t until they were both snacking on ice cream at the counter that Piper realized how odd this situation was. She had just met Leo, and here they were passing the carton of half-baked back and forth because she didn’t feel like getting bowls.

“Your dad is weird. Does he normally let in random teenage boys who appear on his doorstep at three AM?”

“No. But normally, random teenage boys don’t appear on the doorstep at three AM.”

Leo took a spoonful of ice cream before passing the container back to Piper. “Touché.”

For a couple spoonfuls, there is silence. “So what are the other kids like? Will I be totally miserable?”

Piper frowned. “I don’t think you’ll be totally miserable. Silena is nice, but very distant. Drew is the most evil girl to have ever lived. Lacy is adorable, and very sweet. And Mitchell is sort of the odd one out. He’s pretty nice, though.” Piper yawned. “And then there is me, the greatest person you’ll ever meet.”

“I think I’ll be fine. What are the ages?”

“Silena is eighteen next week. Mitchell is fifteen, Drew is fourteen going on fifteen, I’m fourteen, Lacy is nine and a half.”

“I’m fourteen too!”

“Cool!”

There is another silence. Leo finished the ice cream. “I should probably go to sleep,” he said at last.

“Yeah. Same here,” Piper said. Neither move. Leo is tapping his fingers along the counter, in a sort of pattern. Like morse code. In the dim light of the kitchen, she could see that he was hispanic, with toasted skin and dark eyes. He had brown hair that looked like a bunch of bedsprings.

Leo yawned. He stood, stretched, and headed back towards the living room. Piper dumped the empty ice cream container in the trash, flicked the light off, and headed back upstairs. She thought she might be able to sleep now.

Maybe.


	2. Seriously cute boys, art geeks, and untimely bells.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Pipeeer…” Leo said. “Piiiipeeeeer!” He grabbed her shoulders. “Piiiiiiipeeeeeeer, heeeeelp me!”  
> “Leo?”  
> “Piiipeeeeer…”  
> “Leo.”  
> “Pipeeeer help me….”  
> “Leo. Stop,” Piper said. She was using her voice that commanded him to look at her. “Look at me and tell me the problem.”  
> “Cute boy. Oh my God there is a cute boy looking right at me and I’m embarrassing myself so much Piper help me….” Leo looked back at the boy, who scowled and flipped him the bird. Leo gulped. “PiperhehatesmepiperwhatdidIdowrongpiperomagodheissocutehelp--“

Fast forward a year; a year full of late night ice cream conversations, of watching glee when supposed to be asleep, of school work and homework and avoiding both.

By the end of that year, Piper and Leo were best friends.

And now it was early September again. Time for school to start.

Piper and Leo had originally gone to a small private school a mile from the house. After it had burned to the ground on the last day of school—an occurrence which, by the way, was most DEFINITELY NOT Leo’s fault—the private schooled children were sent to the local public school. Leo would have been nervous if Piper had not been going with him.

So here the two were, standing in the corner of the school yard, scoping out potential friends.

“I still can’t believe Drew ditched us,” Piper said. She was craning her neck to follow her foster sister’s path around the yard.

“I can’t believe you can’t believe she ditched us.”

“What dya mean?”

“I mean, she never hung out with us at the old school, where there were ten of us a grade. She is popular, and we are losers. No one hangs out with their loser foster siblings if they can be popular.” Leo was quite pleased with his logic. Piper was not.

“Thanks, loser,” she said. Leo scanned the schoolyard, looking for someone his age. Mitchell had also ditched them, but he was a junior and couldn’t be expected to hang with sophomores. His gaze landed on a small group of fifteen-ish looking kids. Three of them. One had long black hair and an aura about her that said, “don’t touch me.” Then there was the blond buff one, who could easily be the classic jock if not for his immensely dorky glasses. Then there was the dark clothed girl who looked straight at Leo—ohcrapthat’snotagirlbutaseriouslycuteboy.

“Pipeeer…” Leo said. “Piiiipeeeeer!” He grabbed her shoulders. “Piiiiiiipeeeeeeer, heeeeelp me!”

“Leo?”

“Piiipeeeeer…”

“Leo.”

“Pipeeeer help me….”

“Leo. Stop,” Piper said. She was using her voice that commanded him to look at her. “Look at me and tell me the problem.”

“Cute boy. Oh my God there is a cute boy looking right at me and I’m embarrassing myself so much Piper help me….” Leo looked back at the boy, who scowled and flipped him the bird. Leo gulped. “PiperhehatesmepiperwhatdidIdowrongpiperomagodheissocutehelp—“

“Leo. Shut up.”

“Okay. Good. Now we are going to go and walk somewhere else. Like that bench…that was just stolen by a couple who is very into each other. Okay, never mind. We will go sit under that tree…never mind, it also was stolen. We will go to that other tree…come on…Leo. This way.”  
Piper kept up a commentary of the schoolyard. Then, being the perfect annoyance that school is, the bell rang the second they arrived at the (fourth) tree they tried to reach.

Piper closed her locker and hurried towards the lunch room. The day had been pretty uneventful, aside from Leo’s massive freakout in the schoolyard that morning. She hoped Leo hadn’t been too focused on his cute boy to save her a seat.

She found him at a slightly dirty corner table, sitting with three girls, and building a very intricate helicopter out of pipe cleaners. Piper swung herself onto the bench next to him. Leo grinned at her.

“Welcome to the art geek table,” one of the girls said. She had crazy red hair that was tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were very green, and she had lots of freckles. And her shirt was covered in paint. “I’m Rachel.”

Piper smiled. “I’m Piper. How’d you meet Leo?”

“We sat together in art class,” Rachel said. “He drove the teacher crazy by building jet planes out of all the paper given to him.”

Piper laughed.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” the girl to the right of Rachel asked. She had pale skin and dark brown hair with a couple highlights. It was done in a lot of braids, sort of like Piper’s own hair, but clearly with more care. “I’m Calypso,” the girl continued.

“And I’m Hazel,” the third girl said. She was sitting across from Leo, and Piper hadn’t really noticed her before. The girl was African-American, and had lots of dark curls pushed back with a headband. She looked young, with big golden eyes and long lashes.

Leo had finished his helicopter—it was bright pink—and had launched it into the air. Piper was not surprised to see it fly around the cafeteria, but the other girls clearly were. Calypso’s jaw dropped, Rachel whistled, and Hazel gave a cute little clap of delight. Piper smirked, and laughed as it landed on the head of a kid entirely dressed in black.

“Ho-how did you do that?” Calypso said. The snarky, posh bit of her voice had entirely disappeared. Leo grinned, blushing furiously.

“I-I am good at building things?”

“No shit,” Piper said. “You should have seen the thing he did for Christmas. He built a mini Santa that went around to everyone’s room and woke them up by shouting, ‘HO HO HO!’”

Leo blushed harder, if possible. “It was nothing.”

“Are you two related?” Rachel asked. Piper and Leo exchanged a look, wondering how much to reveal. Piper didn’t like to talk about the fact that her dad, a retired actor, ran a foster home, and Leo didn’t like to talk about the fact that he was a foster kid.

“We’re…it’s complicated,” Piper finally said. She unwrapped her lunch and started eating, hoping that Rachel would understand the subtle art of subject change. Rachel nodded, and she, too, began eating. Calypso narrowed her eyes at Piper: This isn’t over. Hazel had already finished her lunch, and was nibbling on a cookie. And Leo—Leo was poking Piper’s shoulder.

“Piper. I forgot my lunch. Can I…thanks,” he said as Piper gave him the other half of her sandwich. And he, too, began eating.

 

 

Leo had come out to Piper in December of freshman year. The two had been sitting on the couch watching Glee. Piper, on discovering that Leo had never seen it, sat him down and made him watch the first episode.

“So…what did you think?” Piper asked when the credits started rolling. Leo grinned at her.

“Let’s watch the second.”

Piper clicked the “next” button on the remote. They had just reached the part where Kendra is introduced when—

“Holy shit,” Leo said.

“What?”

“I know that mothafucka!”

“What?”

“I know her! She was my foster mom a year and a half ago…Jesus, that was an awful home.”

“Leo…she can’t have been your foster mom. She’s a tv character.”

“But she was! Believe me, I had stranger homes than that one, but her’s was the worst. I ran on day two, when she called her son a….” Leo trailed off. He was blushing in the dim light of the TV. “She called her son a fa—I don’t wanna say it,” he muttered.

“Okay.”  
“It hit too close to home, ya know? ‘Cause…I’m…gay…and…” Leo trailed off, staring determinedly at at the staircase.

“You’re gay? It’s cool. I mean, I’m pan.” And that was it. But from then on, Piper felt comfortable talking about boys with Leo. And stuttering over the cute girls. Or really, any attractive person.

 

 

 

The next day, Leo, Mitchell, Piper, and Drew walked to school together in one big clump. The four had dropped Lacy off at the elementary school on the way. Now they were a block away from school, and in a deep discussion about politeness.

“Mitchell, honey, why didn’t you say hi to me in the hallway when we passed each other? It’s the polite thing to do,” Drew said.

“Drew, you pointed me out to the girl you were with as your ‘fashion-deprived foster brother who could be hot if he tried’ before saying hi.”

“Well, sweetie, it’s true…you could be hot if you tried, but you are such a geek and therefore not hot.”

“Drew, leave him alone. And you’re one to talk about being polite, you abandoned me and Leo in the school yard yesterday. We’re in the same grade.”

Drew sniffed. “Piper, sweetheart, I could never get good friends with you and Leo tailing me. When I get good friends, I’ll introduce you to them, and then I’ll start hanging out with you. But until then…” Drew clucked her tongue. “Anyway, Leo is not polite.”

“Hey! Hey! I’m right here, you know. And I can too be polite,” Leo said.  
“You cannot,” Drew said.

“I can too. And your earrings are clashing with each other. One is a pink heart, the other is a red one. Not a good color combo, Drew.”

Piper laughed. “Come on, fashionista. I hear our friends calling.” The four had arrived at the school yard. Drew shoot Piper and Leo a look that clearly said “don’t follow me” before skipping away to the popular area of the schoolyard, her pink bag bouncing on her hip. Mitchell doesn’t even bother looking. He just walked off.

“Aaand, we are alone. In second three of entering the yard.”

“We aren’t alone, goof. We are going to join the art geeks you met yesterday.”

“Oh yeeaah…about that. how do we even fit in with them? We aren’t exactly art geeks.”

“Well, you are good at building things. So you could be a sculpture geek or whatever.”

“True. And I have mad make-up skills, yeah?” Leo shot Piper a grin and winked. “I do..”

“No you don’t! Shut up about that already!”

“Shut up about what?” It was the redheaded painter from the day before. Rachel.

“Nothing,” Piper said firmly.

“Only the reason Piper refuses to wear make-up,” Leo said at the same time.

“SHUT UP!” Leo rolled his eyes. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going good, I guess. We have to sign up for electives today. Have either of you seen Hazel or Calypso?” Rachel said. “Hazel’s brother is here, so she should be too…Hazel! Over here!”

The girl hurried towards them. She was clutching a sketchbook tightly to her chest, along with a silver pencil case. Her hair was in a braid today.

“Hey, guys. I was just talking to Nico…where’s Calypso?”

“I’m not sure…oh. There she is,” Rachel said. “She’s talking to that girl with the pink shoulder bag.”

Piper and Leo whirled around. Sure enough, Calypso and Drew were having a deep conversation.

“She won’t hang with us anymore,” Piper said. “She met Drew.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rachel asked. The bell rang. “Oh, tell me later. We have to go! See you at lunch!”

 

 

Leo had math first. That was good. He had always been good at math, starting when he was little and his mom had taught him to do complex math problems in his head. She would always grin at him, her dark eyes sparkling, when he got a problem right. That was great motivation. He shook off thoughts of his mom. No use dwelling on that. It would only make him sad. Breaking down in tears would be a great way to start the second day of school.

Leo was one of the first students in the classroom. The teacher had assigned them seats based on some weird order only she could understand, and he ended up sitting between a buff Chinese guy, and ohshititwastheseriouslycuteboy. The seriously cute boy glared at Leo. “Thanks for the helicopter,” he muttered. Confused, Leo looked away, and drummed morse code messages onto the desk as he waited for class to begin.

When the math teacher—Ms. Dodds—had started the usual shpeel about her class and what they would be learning that year, Leo took some tinfoil and pipe cleaners from his pocket and began working on making a miniature dragon. That could, of course, fly in the end, because what was the point of a dragon that couldn’t fly? He was wondering if there was a way to make a tinfoil dragon breathe actual fire when the teacher called his name.

“Valdez! Are you listening?”

“Ummmmm….” Leo said. He hadn’t realized he was supposed to be listening, and that she was actually teaching something.

“Tell me. If there is a triangle with a base of four inches, and a height of three inches, what is the length of the diagonal?”

Jesus. This was the easiest thing ever—unless it was a trick. It could be a trick…“Is the triangle an isosceles?” Leo asked. “‘Cause if it is, then the hypotenuse—that’s the diagonal—has a length five inches. If it isn’t, then I’ll need the perimeter….” Leo trailed off, aware of the murmurs of “nerd” throughout the class. He blushed slightly, and was pleased to see that Ms. Dodds was looking impressed. She was clearly one of the meaner math teachers of the school. It was always a good idea to start on a good foot with those.

“So you have a basic understanding of the pythagorean theorem. Wonderful.” The bell rang, and kids began to stand, their chairs scraping the floor. “You will find your homework by the door! Bring it back tomorrow, or don’t show up to class at all!”

This really was a mean teacher. Homework on the first day! Craziness. Pure craziness. Leo glanced down at his now complete dragon. It could fly, but not as well as the helicopter he’d made—oh, that’s what the boy had meant. It must have landed on him. Ha.

Checking to make sure the boy wasn’t looking at him, Leo scrawled a quick note on a piece of paper, tied it to the dragon’s tail, and dropped the dragon in the boy’s bag.

Hopefully he would find it, and test it out.

Hopefully.

 

 

Piper found the table mostly by Rachel’s bright hair. There were a couple other kids sitting there today: a black haired boy with green eyes, a blond girl who seemed to be his girlfriend, and a buff Chinese boy. She slid into the seat next to Hazel.

“Hey,” Rachel said. “Guys, this is Piper. She’s cool. Piper, these are my friends from outside of art class. Percy” she pointed to the green-eyed boy “Annabeth” the blond girl “and Frank.” The third boy gave a little wave. “Where’s Leo?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t know. He might be getting a detention slip from a teacher for trying to make his desk fly around the room.” The blond girl—Annabeth—laughed. “That would be quite an engineering trick for a fifty-five minute class period,” she said.

“If anyone could do it, Leo could,” Piper said. “Did you see the pink pipe cleaner helicopter yesterday?” Annabeth nodded. “He built that. He’s good at that sort of thing.” Annabeth smiled. 

“Cool. I am too,” she said. Then she winced. “That sounded conceited. I meant that I like stuff like that.” Piper laughed.

There was a bang from one of the cafeteria doors. Piper, who had just opened her sandwich, promptly dropped it. Leo came running up to their table, skidding to a halt just before he crashed into Frank. He plopped himself into the seat beside him.

“That was a close one,” he said, breathing hard. “I” pant “nearly” pant “got” pant “classic nerd treatment.” Pant.

“What?” Hazel asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Some evil girl in a red shirt tried to stuff my head in a toilet. Y’know. Classic nerd treatment.”

“I should have been there,” the green-eyed boy—Percy—said. “I’m guessing you’re Leo? I’m Percy. She tried to do that to me, once, too.”

“I’m Leo. How’d you get away? I had to stab her with a screwdriver. My phillips head will never be the same.”

“There was a crack in the toilet. I made it bigger.”

Leo laughed, and looked at Frank. “We’re in math together, right?”

Frank nodded. “With Hazel’s brother.”

“You’re in math with Nico?”

“Se-Helicopter boy is your brother?”  
“Helicopter boy? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind,” Leo said. He pulled out his lunch—Piper had made sure he remembered it—and started eating. He had brought apple sauce and a roast beef sandwich. He finished the sandwich in about three bites. As he was opening his apple sauce, his fingers slipped and it fell onto Frank.

“Whoops,” he said. “Sorry about that…”

“It’s fine,” Frank said. “Does anyone have napkins?”

With that, the ever-untimely bell rang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things that are not clear: Hazel is a freshman. I guess that Piper and Leo haven’t quite realized that...oblivious idiots. Or writing mistakes. Or both.  
> Actually, that’s all I can think of at the moment. Please let me know of anything else!


	3. Why Leo got detention (for 12 weeks)

Three weeks had passed since the start of the school year. Leo had learned quite a bit about his new school friends since then. 

“Can you believe that Hazel is a freshman?” Piper asked. It was 11:30 at night, and the two of them were sitting at the kitchen table under the guise of doing homework. Which explained why their pencils were lying, untouched, by their worksheets, and why there was a mint chip ice cream container being passed back and forth. 

“Yeah. What I can’t believe is why it took me so long to figure out. She has a younger kid aura about her, you know? And I should have wondered why she was in none of my classes…” Leo took a spoonful. “And why does Frank hate me so much?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you sewed a refilling whoopie cushion to the butt of his pants? Or because you called him a baby sumo wrestler? Or because you stole his pants? Or because you called him an iguana? Or because you laughed when he demanded surgical intervention for the Chines handcuffs? Or because you laughed at him when he tripped with that lunch tray—” 

“To be fair, he did trip over me after I had fallen with my lunch tray. And in the end, my fall was funnier. I was laughing at myself—”

“Yes, but he doesn’t know that. Or because you spilled apple sauce on him—”

“THAT WAS AN ACCIDENT! I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO THAT!”

“I know! But you are better at math than him. He might be slightly jealous-“

“Because I help him with his geometry problems when the teacher-from-hell isn’t looking? I try to be nice to him! And he hates me even more than seriously cute Nico! For no reason!”

Piper laughed. She had the ice cream now, and was holding her spoon in one hand and the container in the other and was laughing hysterically. 

“What?” Leo said. “What’s so funny? Hey, give me the ice cream…” and now he, too, was laughing. Piper pushed the ice cream towards him, but she overshot and it went flying off the table. She put her head down on the table so it looked like she was crying, and laughed. Leo watched her shoulders shake, chuckling. He reached down to get the ice cream container off the floor and put it back on the table. He had stopped laughing, but was grinning as he watched Piper. She was laughing as hard as he had been over The Make-Up Incident—and now he was laughing. Just thinking about TMUI made him laugh.

“What are you doing?” came a voice. Leo turned towards the doorway. Lacy was there, in her pink pajamas, holding her comfort rabbit. Her hair was all messed up from sleep. Leo hiccuped once and tried to put on a straight face. “We’re eating ice cream and dying of laughter. Did we wake you up?”

Lacy scrubbed one of her eyes with a fist. “Nu-uh. I had a nightmare,” she said. Piper lifted her head from the table at this, and managed to stop laughing. 

“Oh, no! What happened? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Would you like some ice cream? Ice cream always makes me feel better after nightmares.”

“Are you okay? Do you want help going back to sleep?”

“Should I get you an ice cream spoon?”

“Leo, that’s not-“

“I want ice cream,” Lacy said decisively. “I can get my own spoon.” She shuffled to the silverware drawer and grabbed one, then sat down. Leo passed her the Mint Chip. Lacy started eating.

“Why does seriously cute Nico hate you?” Piper asked, starting from where the conversation had left off.

“I don’t know. Why does anyone hate me?” Piper rolled her eyes at that. 

“I don’t know. it could be because you are an annoying little sh-” Piper looked at Lacy “-poop, or because you move distractingly much, or because you make bad jokes-”

“Hey, insult me all you want, but don’t insult my jokes! I make good jokes—right, Lacy?” Lacy shrugged. “Not really,” she said. Leo groaned.

“Fine. My jokes are awful. But I’m nice to seriously-cute-Nico! I make him little trinkets every day! Hell, today I made a little blinking sign that said ‘GrimReaper!’”

Piper raised her eyebrows. “You make him little trinkets? What is his reaction to these little ‘trinkets’?”

“I dunno. He’s never spoken to me, not even to ask for a pencil.” Leo frowned, remembering. “No, wait a minute, he thanked me for the helicopter on the second day of school.”

“Riiiight. Have you ever spoken to him? ‘Cause you may be the reason he doesn’t talk to you.”

“Why would that be?” Leo asked. He stole the ice cream container from Lacy. She stole it back before he could take a bite. Piper didn’t answer. “I did ask him for a pencil once…I may have had one on my desk, and I may have wriggled my eyebrows at him.”

Piper sighed. “You are impossible. Has it ever occurred to you to be less obvious about your crushes?”

“I don’t have a crush on him!” Leo yelped. “I don’t!”

“Yes you do, Leo,” Lacy broke in. “Even I know that, and I’m ten.” She passed Leo the ice cream container. “So what about you, Piper? Who do you like?” Lacy continued.

“Yeah, come on, Pipes, spill. Who is it?”

“No one.”

“Piper…” Leo and Lacy said together.

“No one!”

“Fine. You don’t like anyone. But if you had to, who would you like?” Leo asked.

“Leo…”

“You’d like me? Jeez, Piper, thanks, but that wouldn’t work out.”

“Iswearvaldeziwillmurderyousomeday,” Piper said through gritted teeth. 

“Tell us, Piper! Pleease?” Lacy said. She gave Piper her very best puppy dog eyes. Piper felt some of her resolve slipping. Lacy was very good at puppy dog eyes. Unfairly good. Lacy clasped her hands beneath her chin.

“Okay…give me a second, okay?” Piper said. She began to think. There was Jason Grace, Percy’s cousin. He was a hottie. But Piper didn’t know him well at all. There was Reyna, Jason’s best friend. Same problem. Nico was out of the question. There was that kid Will Solace…and there was a really pretty girl named Juniper…hmm. Maybe it would be easier to look at her friends? Like Rachel. She was pretty. And so was Calypso, but Piper hadn’t spoken to her since the first day, even though Calypso was now BFF with Drew. Percy and Annabeth were both out of the question. Frank looked like a…ok, Leo was right, Frank did look like a baby sumo wrestler. So that left Hazel. Huh. Hazel was gorgeous, partly because she had no idea how good looking she was. Hazel was an amazing artist. So was Rachel, but Rachel c  
learly had the hots for Calypso. And Hazel was super nice. And cute. And her eyes….  
“We’re waiting,” Leo said. “C’mon, who is it?”

“Hazel,” Piper blurted. Then she wished she hadn’t. Leo would start shipping them, and it would get super embarrassing, super fast..

“Oh! Hazel! She’s a cutie for sure,” Leo said, passing Piper the ice cream. There was enough for one more spoonful. “I like boys, and even I know that. And she’s Nico’s sister, so there is bonus points for that.”

“They’re half siblings,” Piper said. 

“But they live together.”

“True…”

“Well no matter what, I ship it. I most definitely ship it.”

“Leo…” Piper groaned.

 

 

Piper’s prediction came true the very next day at lunch. She and Hazel were sitting next to each other, having arrived at the cafeteria before the rest of their group. The two were deep in discussion over which myths were better: Roman or Greek. 

The rest of the group arrived. Then Leo arrived. Piper was busy defending the Greek’s architecture with Annabeth while Frank and Hazel argued for the organization of the Roman empire. Rachel and Percy were just staring, mouths agape, as the four made their points. 

Then Leo arrived. He sat down next to Percy. It took him three seconds of hearing the discussion to join the side defending the Greeks, insisting that since Archimedes was Greek, and so was the symbol for pi, the Greeks were the best by far. 

“ANYway, there is a more important discussion topic,” Leo said. “We are placing bets for when Hazel and Piper start dating.” He was greeted by silence. Piper was horrified to feel her face growing warm, and hoped that everyone was too confused to notice her cheeks darkening. Hazel also seemed embarrassed. She was fanning herself, her golden eyes wide. “Well? Anyone?” Leo asked. “Okay, well, come to me if you want to place one.” 

No one spoke for the rest of lunch.

 

 

Piper and Rachel had Gym together for last period on Fridays. The two also had lockers in the same hall. They walked together.

“So do you actually like her?” Rachel asked. “What he did was pretty cruel, especially if you like her.”

“I don’t like her! Not like that, at least. We were eating ice cream last night, and talking, and he asked me who I would like if I had to like someone. So I said Hazel! And now he will be shipping us for the rest of high school, and quite possibly life. I swear, if he makes a speech at my wedding, he will mention her and just about everyone else that i’ve ever told him I like.”

“Why’d you tell him, if he would do this?”

Piper slammed her locker shut with more force than necessary. “Because he’s never been so obvious,” she said, twirling her combination lock furiously, “about it before. Urg!” She had messed up the combo. Piper tried again.

“What’s he normally do?”

“The usual. Heart symbols and suggestive eyebrow wiggles and kissy faces. It’s annoying, and sort of embarrassing, but he’s weird normally and it can be easily explained away.”

“Mmm. Hey! I just had a great idea. Do you want to come over to my place? We could do homework, goof off with art supplies, bake stuff. It’s a Saturday tomorrow, we could have a sleep over. And we could invite Hazel and Annabeth. It’ll just be us girls. You could clear up the shit that happened at lunch…It’ll be fun!”

Piper smiled. “That sounds great. I’ll call my dad, tell him that I’m at a friend’s house for the night. I live pretty close to here, it wouldn’t be hard to grab my stuff.”

“Yes! I’ll text the others right now…” Rachel said, getting out her phone. It had a duct tape case that looked as though she had made it herself. The duct tape was white, with colorful paint spatters. Rachel had even taken the time to line up the pieces, so the splotches made sense.

“Cool case,” Piper said, shifting her bag onto her other shoulder.

“Thanks. I made it myself…they both say yes! We’ll meet up out front.”

 

Leo was working on a toy car when he heard Piper clomping up the stairs. He tightened the last screw, making sure the doors opened right, before hopping off his bed and into the hallway. He saw Piper dashing down the stairs, her sleeping bag coming out of a canvas shoulder bag he knew was filled with clothes. Wow, she must be really pissed. Leo knew that normally she would have at least said “hi” before going to a sleepover. Not that she had ever gone to a sleepover while he had been at the house, but still. It was manners. Everyone knew that.

Leo wandered back into his room, but building things didn’t really hold any appeal. Piper hadn’t been this mad at him since The Make-Up Incident, and even then, she hadn’t really been mad. Just horrified. But she was cured of that once she gave Leo his makeover. Because Leo Valdez wearing make-up was a sight funny enough to make even the most enraged person almost die of laughter.

But not the most sad person. Normally thinking about TMUI sent him into hysterics, but now his lips barely formed a sad smile. 

This was bad. 

Maybe, if he made it up to her, by greatly embarrassing himself, or creating an epic prank on Drew, or something along those lines, she would forgive him.  
Maybe.

 

 

“I could never let anyone put make-up on me after TMUI,” Piper said. She was sitting on the Dare family couch, between Annabeth and Hazel. The four of them were watching the Breakfast Club.

“You and Leo say that a lot,” Annabeth said. “The two of you are always saying ‘TMUI worthy’ when someone is wearing makeup.”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering what that’s about. Care to explain?” Rachel said. Hazel hadn’t said anything, because she appeared to have fallen asleep on Piper’s shoulder. 

“I…” Piper said. She didn’t know how to say that she didn’t like to talk about it 

“Please?” Rachel asked. “We won’t tell.”

“Fine. So Leo was mad at me once, for no reason. Or if there was a reason, neither of us can remember it. Or—wait, it was April fools. And he stole Drew’s make-up, and gave me a makeover. While I was asleep. The next morning, I woke up and got dressed in the dark, without looking at a mirror. And I went to breakfast. And everyone was laughing hysterically after Drew’s initial scream. And I couldn’t figure out why until I brushed my teeth. It was awful.” There was more to the story. Like how Piper had tackled Leo to the ground and done his make-up. And how Drew had nearly killed both of them. But the others didn’t need to know that.

“Do you have pictures?” Rachel asked eagerly. “‘Cause I’d love to assess Leo’s make-up skills…”

“Umm…” Piper said. “Yeah. I’ve never shown them to anyone, though.”She couldn’t help passing the phone, with the picture of her after TMUI. Rachel’s enthusiasm about this was getting contagious. “These are pretty great.” Rachel passed the phone to Annabeth, who muttered “holy shit” and passed it back to Piper.

“Can I see?” Hazel asked, lifting her head from Piper’s shoulder. So Hazel was awake. Piper passed her the phone. “Oh my god. This is insane. Do you have the photos of Leo?”

“Yeah, but I’d need his okay to show them to you.” Hazel nodded. She put her head back on Piper’s shoulder. Rachel and Annabeth started talking about who knows what. Piper was pretty focused on the weight on her shoulder. Hazel’s hair was tickling her neck, and smelled good. Really good. 

She yawned. The credits had stopped rolling, and she was getting pretty tired. There had been lots of late nights recently.

“I think it’s time we go to sleep,” Rachel said. “I’m kinda tired.”

“Yeah.”

“Same here.”

Hazel gave a soft snore. The three exchanged looks and started to giggle. They giggled for far too long, clearly because of all the popcorn they’d had and because it was so late.

“We really should go to bed.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get my sleeping bag.”

No one moved. 

Finally, Rachel stood and stretched. Annabeth got up next, and Piper tried to move but found that she couldn’t. Hazel had shifted in her sleep and now had her arms around Piper’s waist.

“This is hilarious,” Annabeth remarked dryly. 

“We should try to unclasp her hands, maybe?” Rachel said.

“Umm…” Piper said. She reached around and, as gently as possible, tried to get Hazel off of her. It didn’t work, and Rachel and Annabeth were doing their best not to fall over laughing. The two were leaning on each other, giggling, and offered no help. At last, Piper stopped trying to get Hazel’s hands unclasped and scooted forward until she fell off the couch. From her seat on the floor, it was easier to lift Hazel’s arms over her head like she was undoing a necklace. 

“Who knew?” she mumbled. She walked to the corer of the room, where she had stashed her stuff, and pulled out her sleeping bag. She unrolled it, slid inside, and fell asleep almost immediately.

 

 

Leo hadn’t looked at Piper when she got back to the house on Saturday afternoon. He was pretty sure she was still mad at him, because she hadn’t come by his room to talk to him. Man. She was never this angry about anything. What had he done that pissed her off so much? 

He found himself outside Drew’s door at six in the morning on Sunday, to ask for help. This was probably a bad idea. Drew was always talking about how she needed her beauty sleep, blah blah blah. She would probably be a beast at six in the morning, on a Sunday. He really shouldn’t wake her up.

He knocked on the door. This was quite possibly the stupidest thing he’d ever done. No—this was definitely the stupidest thing he’d ever done. 

He continued knocking. 

He heard footsteps. It was too late to run. The door swung open. Drew stood behind it, her hair in a braid down her back to keep it from getting messy. She squinted at him, and pulled her blanket tighter around her.

“What do you want?” she said. 

“Can I come in? I need help. Piper is mad at me an—”

Drew slammed the door in his face. 

Leo started knocking again. “Drew! Please! I need your help tomorrow morning with something!”

Drew opened the door again. “Why don’t you ask tomorrow morning?”

“That’s a good question.”

Drew was about to slam the door again, but this time Leo was ready. He put his foot against the doorframe, blocking it from closing. “Drew, please. I need you to do my make-up for tomorrow.” Drew stopped trying to kick Leo’s foot out of her room, and looked at him.

“You need what?” she said. “Leo, are you sane?”

No, I’m not. I should be in a straightjacket Please forget what I just said. “Yes. You heard me. I need you to do my make-up tomorrow. Please, Drew.” Leo was begging her, and he hoped she could see that.

“Fine. Now leave. I need my sleep.”

Leo moved his foot, and the door was slammed in his face.

 

The next day, Leo left for school way before Piper did. He didn’t want to get the cold shoulder again, and she couldn’t see his face yet. Nope. That would ruin the entire thing.

He could feel the stares of people on the streets as he passed them. He managed not to blush, but was positive that they were wondering why a fifteen-year-old boy was walking around with a beautifully made-up face. Drew was much better at make-up than Piper. Leo sort of looked good this morning, but he was still wearing his standard uniform of beat up pants, tool belt, and solid color shirt. Even to himself, who knew why he was doing this, the effect was a strange one.

He arrived in the school yard and darted straight to a corner. Piper and the rest of the gang wouldn’t arrive until the yard was too crowded for him to be noticed. Hopefully, he would be safe. 

He waited for the bell to ring.

 

 

As Leo walked through the hallways that day, all of his fellow students stopped whatever they were doing and stared. Leo was making sure everyone saw him, walking with his head held high, and winking at some of the people who looked most surprised. This was kind of enjoyable, but it was irritating as well. The students here had to be pretty homophobic, if they couldn’t see a boy wearing make-up without dropping a textbook. He heard “fag” being muttered several times. Someone called out to say that Halloween wasn’t till the end of October.  
Yup, some of these kids were pretty homophobic.

He went through the morning without too many people shoving him against the wall of lockers. Just a couple more than normal.

Leo was very relieved to get to Geometry, where no one ever dared to act out under the terrible gaze of Ms. Dodds. He was one of the first students to arrive to class. Ms. Dodds was standing at the door, and gestured for him to enter.

Leo walked to his desk. Seriously-cute-Nico was already there, and had gotten out the homework from the weekend. He looked up as Leo came in, glared, and looked down again. Great. At least he was acting normal. Then seriously-cute-Nico jerked his head back up and stared at Leo unashamedly.

“Valdez? What did you do to your face?” seriously-cute-Nico said. Holy shit. If wearing make-up got seriously-cute-Nico to talk to him, Leo would wear make-up every day for the rest of his life.

“What do you mean?” Leo asked innocently. “I always look like this!” His voice cracked on the word “this,” and Leo willed himself not to blush.

“No, you don’t. You look even worse than you always do.”

“Burn, di Angelo,” Leo said. He had reached his desk, and slid into his chair. He was trying not to scream. He was having a conversation with Nico di Angelo. HE WAS HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH NICO DI ANGELO! It was a miracle! “So how was you weekend?”

Nico shot him a look. “None of your business.”

“Ooh! Was there drama?” Leo asked, giving jazz hands on “drama.”

“I said, none of your business.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“What the fuck, Valdez? It is none of your business. That means I will not tell you shit.” Seriously-cute-Nico-who-is-even-cuter-when-he’s-angry scowled and turned away from Leo just as the second bell rang. The rest of the class filed in. Ms. Dodds walked around, collecting homework. She raised her finely plucked eyebrows when she reached Leo’s desk, but didn’t say a word.

Throughout the class, kids kept glancing over at Leo and staring at his face. Well, that was to be expected. Even with the stares, Leo sort of zoned out during Ms. Dodds’s lecture—he knew all of it already—and was working on a little skull to drop in seriously-cut-Nico’s bag at the end of the day. Leo had put little notes on all of them, and this one would be no exception. He was trying to make it so the skull could walk and fly, but it didn’t seem to be working. This was frustrating. Currently, all it would do was fly while moving it’s feet. Maybe he had to have two levers, and two different circuits inside of it. That would probably be the best course of action. 

Leo had almost finished putting the skull back together when Ms. Dodds called on someone who had been paying less attention than Leo. “Mr. Augur, are you listening?”

“Uhhh…” the kid said. It was some dude named Octavian Augur, who sort of looked like a scarecrow. He was wearing a shirt that had a teddy bear holding a knife. “Sorry, ma’am, I was finding Leo very distracting. He kept making faces at me, you see, and mouthing rude words. That and the make-up was very disorienting.” Ms. Dodds wheeled around, and strode towards Leo’s desk in the third row. He hurriedly stashed his work in progress, along with his tools, under his desk. This was bad. Octavian fucking Augur would pay for this. 

“Valdez. Is what Mr. Augur was saying true?”

“N-no, ma’am,” Leo said truthfully. 

“Were you paying attention?”

“Y-yes, ma’am. I was.”

“Because this does seem like something you would do, Valdez. You are wearing make up, and it is completely inappropriate for school.”

“Hey, lady, that’s not fair!” Leo said. He stuffed his things into his tool belt and stood up. “How is make-up inappropriate for school? The girls wear it all the time! I should be allowed to too!”

“Detention, Valdez.”

“What? Why? Wha’d I do wrong? How does me wearing make-up mean I get detention? This is injustice, I tell you! Injustice!”

“You have detention for the rest of the week, Valdez. You are acting inappropriately in class, distracting one of the students, and not paying attention. I highly recommend you stop talking right now.”

“I wasn’t distracting anyone! I was too paying attention!”

“I do not believe you, Valdez. Mr. Augur is a trustworthy student, and he says you were making faces at him.”  
“I wasn’t! I wasn’t making faces! I was listening!”

“Then what was I talking about, Valdez?”

Shit. What had Ms. Dodds been talking about? There were formulas on the board for the circles, but somehow Leo got the feeling that wasn’t today’s topic. His eyes flashed around, and landed on the notes of seriously-cute-Nico…who was writing something in big black letters: the background of analytic geometry.

“The background of analytic geometry,” Leo said. Ohpleaseletthatbecorrectplease….

“Correct, Valdez. Mr. di Angelo. Would you care to explain why you chose to write the discussion topic in sharpie on your notes? Is that the reason that Valdez got the topic name correct?”

Fuck. This woman didn’t miss a trick, did she?

“Uhhh…” seriously-cute-Nico said. “Um.”

“Detention for both of you. Valdez, you have detention for the next five weeks. Mr. di Angelo, you have detention for the next two weeks.”

“He has detention for the next two weeks? Ms. Dodds, that isn’t fair at all! He was paying attention and taking notes and shouldn’t get any detention!”

“Valdez, I’m warning you…”

“But really! What did he do wrong? He was trying to be nice, Ms Dodds. If you punish him for being nice, no one will ever be nice again!”

“Leo Valdez, you have just earned yourself detention until Christmas, and have earned Mr. di Angelo another three weeks of detention. If you do not sit down right now and pay attention, it will be suspension for you and di Angelo both.” 

Leo gulped. He sat down. Ms Dodds walked back to the front of the room, and resumed her lecture from where she had left off.. Leo did his best to hang onto her every word while finishing the little skull under his desk. 

The bell rang just as he tightened the last screw. This time, the note he attached was an apology as well as instructions for use. He dropped it into seriously-cute-Nico’s bag on the way out, and had almost left the class when the smaller boy caught up.

“Valdez. Why the fucking hell did you try to stand up for me back there?” seriously-cute-Nico asked.

“Because,” Leo said.

Seriously-cute-Nico raised his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t get detention!” Leo explained. Nico’s eyebrows went higher, if possible. “You tried to save my butt. I tried to save yours.”

“‘Tried’ is the key word,” seriously-cute-Nico said. “I shouldn’t have helped you.”

“Yeah, why’d you do that? ‘Cause I’m the best person ever and all, but most people don’t notice.”

“No, you aren’t. You are the person I am to sit in a room with every day after school for the next five weeks. When you get into shit during Chem, I will not be backing you up.”

Right. They had Chem together. And—right. Leo’s lab partner was none other than Piper, his best friend. Who he had worn make-up to school for. Who hadn’t spoken to him or even looked at him since lunch on Friday.

It came as no surprise to Leo when he “got into shit during Chem”. The real surprise was that he got into trouble for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there was such a huge gap between updates, it took a while to write this chapter.
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos, they mean the world to me!


	4. A Mystery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been...um...more than 50 days since I last updated, and I am a terrible person and I'm sorry. So here goes.
> 
> Oh, and there is a small bit where Piper and Leo pass notes, and I couldn't figure out how to change the font. Piper has bold and italicized writing, and Leo has italicized writing.

    Piper walked into Chemistry early.  She put her stuff down and waited for Leo to arrive.  He had to talk to her this class, because they were partners.  And today was a lab day, when they would practice mixing chemicals to get the right combination the teacher was looking for.  The teacher, Mr. Harpies, was very old and probably had gotten his teaching license fifty years ago, and his lessons made no sense.    
  
    Piper nearly fell off her seat when Leo walked in.  He was talking to Nico di Angelo—Nico di Angelo, the dark haired emo kid that Leo was head over heels for!—and wearing make-up.  Make-up!  Was that why he had left the house so early?  Because he was wearing make-up?  
  
    Leo wiggled his fingers at Nico and walked to towards Piper.  His face looked good with make-up—Drew must have done it, because only Drew could contour faces like that, only Drew would be able to make Leo look good in make-up.  He dropped his bag and swung himself into his seat.    
      
    “Nice face,” Piper said.  “I really dig the bronzer.”    
  
    Leo laughed.  “I’m sure Drew would give you a makeover, too, if you asked.  You could really use one,” he said.  Piper put a hand on her chest as though she was hurt.  “Me?  Need a makeover?  Why Leo Valdez, I am perfect just the way I am.”  
  
    The bell rang and Mr. Harpies rapped the desk with a ruler.  “Attention!” he squeaked.  He cleared his throat.  “Attention!  Today, as you know, is a lab day, and you will be expected to mix a selection of acids and bases without causing any form of reaction.  As you are all aware, this will be very challenging but I expect the best out of all of you….”  
      
    Piper yawned, and let her gaze travel around the room.  Mr. Harpies could talk for hours on how much he expected of his tenth graders, and about the possible reactions, and about how important chemistry was to life.  Piper understood that it was an important aspect to baking, which she loved, but other than that she couldn’t force herself to care.    
      
    Leo passed her a note: 

_sorry_  
  
Piper responded immediately:  
  
_**its okay. I saw you talking to Nico.  What was that about?**_  
  
_I got detention, he did too, it was my fault_  
  
_**????? SPILL!!**_  
  
_urg, i don’t wanna, but ok….i wasn’t paying attention in math he tried to help we both got detention, it was my fault_  
  
_**You two are spending all afternoon together in a room, all alone.  You should be delighted.**_  
  
_ha ur right_  
_but it isn’t just today it’s the next five weeks.  and anyway, what about the detention master_  
  
_**FIVE WEEKS???**_  
  
_five weeks_  
  
_**Oh my God Dad is going to kill y—**_  
  
    The note was yanked out of Piper’s hand.  It was Mr. Harpies, standing over her with a face like thunder.  
  
    “Mr. Valdez.  Miss McLean.  What on earth is this?”  
  
  
  


 

 

 

  
  
    Nico felt his cheeks burning as Mr. Harpies read the note aloud to the class.  He should have been an actor rather than a teacher, because he was putting on a show as he read it.  Nico had never seen him this lively.  
  
    Then there was the whole mention of him.  Why would Valdez be delighted to be in detention with him?  It was probably just a joke, but still.  Some joke.  
    Nico slid down in his seat as everyone in the class turned to look at him.  He would murder Valdez, for mentioning him in that stupid note.  His face could have fried an egg.  And now he was stuck in detention with Valdez for the next five weeks.  His life sucked.  
  
    Nico watched as Mr. Harpies gave out another weeks worth of detentions for the note to both Piper and Leo, and then went back to droning on and on about who knows what.  Finally, with twenty minutes left to the class period, Mr. Harpies gave the okay for them to begin work.  
  
    The entire class stood and went to get supplies for the experiment.  Nico, being in the last row, was the first to get to the back table containing all the necessary supplies.  He returned to his seat and he and his lab partner, Connor Stoll, started the experiment.    
  
    They had already messed up three times when they heard the loud crash from the front of the room.  It was, of course, from Valdez’s table.  One of the two must have really made a mistake, as one of their bottles had blown up and smashed all the other bottles of the tray, causing a huge puddle to form.  The puddle then began to smoke, and the class filled with the nasty smell of burning rubber.    
  
    This was a fairly normal occurrence in chemistry class.  Someone often knocked an elbow into a bottle which hit another bottle which hit a beaker which caused something to fall or smash or spill or explode.  All students knew what to do in this scenario: run to the bathroom and get paper towels to mop up the mess.  Why there wasn’t a paper towel roll in the room, Nico would never know.  
  
    Valdez immediately jumped out of his seat and shot out of the classroom to get paper towels.  Nico and Connor went back to discussing the best way to go about combining hydrochloric acid and drain cleaner without causing their eyebrows to burn off.  They had decided to try adding the chemicals to a cup of water before mixing them when Valdez shot back into the classroom, his arms full of paper towels.  He dropped the whole load onto the floor and began scrubbing fanatically, grinning like a madman.  Connor and Nico rolled their eyes at each other as he ran back out of the class room to get more paper towels.  
      
    Nico got up to get a cup of water from the only sink—which, for some reason, was at the front of the room, this classroom really made no sense—delicately stepping over the chemical-soaked paper towel pile in the middle of the room.  Nico was on his way back to the table when Valdez shot back into the room, and nearly ran over Nico.  Nico jumped out of the way just in time, almost slipping on the paper towels and sloshing half the cup of water all over his shirt.  Valdez was not so lucky, and stepped onto the paper towel pile while going at full speed.  His arms windmilled, the paper towels flying every direction, and Valdez fell backward.  
  
    Nico couldn’t help it.  He started laughing.  And Valdez got another week’s worth of detention.  
  
  
  
  
  
    “…and then, and then I fall over!  Paper towels go everywhere, and it was the funniest thing you’ve ever seen.  S-Nico di Angelo started cracking up.  It was the funniest thing ever,” Leo said.  It was lunch time, and he had just shared the story of the Great Chemical Fall, as it would come to be known.  
  
    “Nico was cracking up?” Hazel asked.  “That must have been quite a fall, Nico almost never cracks up.”  
  
    “Yeah, the last time I saw Nico crack up was that time that Aunt Juno was running from a bee and fell into the pool,” Percy said.  “Remember that?”  
  
    “Oh my God, that was the most hilarious thing ever!” Hazel said.  “Remember how her make-up all came off, and it looked like her face had melted!”  
  
    “And her dress!  She started crying when that dress got wet,” Rachel said.  
  
    “Ah, that was the best.  Aunt Juno hates us all anyway,” Percy said.  “Her reaction when she met Paul was priceless.”  Rachel, Hazel, and Percy all laughed.  
  
    “Do you know anything about this?” Piper asked Annabeth.  Annabeth smiled slightly.  
      
    “Rachel and Percy are the sort of friends who were playing together in the baby pool, and Percy and Hazel are cousins.  It’s all really confusing.”  
  
    “I bet,” Piper muttered.  She had known that Percy and Nico were cousins, and that Rachel and Percy were family friends, and that Hazel and Nico were siblings, but she hadn’t fully made the connection.  
  
    “Who’s Aunt Juno?” Leo asked.  “Her name is the same as the Roman wife of Zeus.”  Annabeth laughed.  “I can’t believe you noticed that!” she said.  “I thought I was the only one who had made the connection.”  Annabeth lowered her voice.  “She kind of acts like the original Juno, too, and is super protective of her husband.  And she hates me.”  
  
    Piper grinned.  “Fitting name, then.”  
  
    “Hey, where’s Frank?” Leo asked.  “I coulda sworn I saw him in Geometry today…”  
  
    “Yeah, where is Frank?”  Piper said.    
  
    “Frank is right here,” Frank said.  Everyone turned to look at him.  He had just arrived at the table, looking deeply annoyed.  “Sorry, I had my bag stolen by Clarisse,” he said.  “She drives me crazy sometimes.  Has Leo told you how he managed to land three month’s worth of detentions?”  
  
    “What?”  
  
    “How!”  
  
    “Tell me what you did so I know not to do it.”  
  
    “Leo!”  
  
    “You said it was only five weeks!  You didn’t say it was three months!  Oh my God! Dad is going to kill you!”  
  
    “Jeez, you guys, it was only to Christmas.  That…oh, that really is three months.  Shit,” Leo said, the realization sinking in.  “AND, Piper, I said it was five weeks of detention with       s-Nico, not in total.”  
  
    “Why does Nico have detention with you for five weeks?” Hazel said, her eyes narrowing as she glared at Leo.  
  
    “Oh, you didn’t tell them?  It was terrific.  He went into this rant about injustice and homophobia and car parts, and how you had to be nice to nice people, and how Ms. Dodds would burn in Hell, and—“  
  
    “It wasn’t a rant!  I didn’t talk about homophobia, or car parts, or anything about Hell!”  
  
    “You should have.  But really, I’m so glad I recorded the entire discussion.  I have it all on video!” Frank was beaming as he pulled out his phone.  The rest of the table was leaning in to see the small screen, and Leo was trying to figure out how Ms. Dodds had not seen Frank recording the whole thing.  He watched in awe as the video began to play, showing glimpses of the room.  It started just before Octavian the asshole was called out on for not paying attention, so Leo was pretty sure the phone had been recording a video without Frank’s knowledge for most of class, and he had only happened to notice it in time to angle it towards the drama.  It was a crappy video, though, mostly centered in the legs of the desk.  But the sound was good and that was what mattered.  
  
    “Leo, I can’t believe you managed to get Nico detention for the next five weeks,” Hazel said.  “That is unbelievable.”  
  
    “Yeah, that kid has gotten straight As in every class for who knows how long,” Percy said.  
      
    “You are a very naughty boy,” Frank said.  
  
    Leo found himself praying that the bell would ring.  He really didn’t feel like having every action of math class discussed and analyzed, or having his lunch pals completely ignore his insanely beautiful face, or having all of seriously-cute-Nico’s family members talk about him with such affection.  Especially when there was no chance of the other boy liking him back in a million years.    
  
    Man, he was way to deep into this crush, wasn’t he?  
  
    Leo pulled himself together and gave a goofy grin.  “That’s me.  Naughty boy supreme.”  
  
    “Dad still is going to kill you,” Piper muttered.  “I can’t believe that you got three months of detention.”  
  
    “My dad is going to throw a fit when he hears that Nico got detention,” Hazel muttered.  “I’m going to have a lot of fun explaining this.”  
  
    “Hey, did any of you watch the latest episode of American Horror Story?” Rachel said.  “‘Cause it sorta confused me…”  
  
    Leo took out a couple pipe cleaners and began winding them together.  He couldn’t care less about American Horror Story. It was nice to be surrounded by people who acted like they cared about him.  And Piper, who really did care about him.  
  
    “Oh, yeah, Valdez…why the make-up?” Frank asked him quietly.  “I noticed in math but didn’t dare ask under the watchful eye of Ms. Dodds.”  
      
    “Felt like it,” Leo murmured.  He didn’t really want to talk about Friday’s lunch.  That had been a big mistake to bring up, even though he could see Hazel sort of staring at Piper.  And though he could see the two occasionally brushing shoulders.  Frank followed his gaze.  
  
    “My bet is that the two will start dating when they get locked in a closet together for a day,” Frank said quietly.  
  
    “Would you help me set that up?” Leo said, giving the other a crooked grin.  
  
    “Maybe…we should probably wait till we have the rest of the group in on it.”  
  
    “And till we get Rachel and Calypso together.”  
  
    “Practice matchmaking on them.”  
  
    “Yeah…we have a plan.”  Leo said, as the stupid bell finally rang.  He stood and grabbed his bag.  He had just had a conversation with Frank Zhang, of all people, and he hadn’t been tempted to tease the other mercilessly.  This, truly, was a very strange day.  And there had been no death threats from Zhang.  Maybe he should wear make-up more often.  
  
    

 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
    The detention room was this small, drafty classroom in the area of the school that students avoided by habit.  Seriously-cute-Nico was already there, staring straight ahead.  Ms. Dodds was watching the detained.  Of course.  Leo’s face was slightly wet from washing off his make-up—it wasn’t supposed to itch, right?—and she looked furious.  Of course.  
  
    “Valdez,” Ms. Dodds said.  “You are late.”  Leo checked his watch with way more drama then necessary, and then the clock.  He wasn’t late, but he was pretty sure Ms. Dodds would find a way to suspend him if he said so.  Leo muttered “sorry” and took the seat right next to seriously-cute-Nico.  
  
    “For the next two hours you will sit here and think about whatever you did to deserve this.  After the first thirty minutes, you are allowed to take out your homework and get started.  There will be no talking.”  With that, the teacher from the black lagoon went to the scratched up desk at the front of the room and snd started drinking a coffee.  
  
    Leo did his best to sit still.  It lasted about three minutes.  He was extremely conscious of the fact that, not counting the evil demonic teacher who was still drinking coffee, he was all alone with Nico di Angelo.    
  
    “Valdez.  Stop the finger tapping,” came the sharp order from the front of the room.  Leo gulped.  He hadn’t realized it , but he had been tapping his fingers in a pattern that he now recognized as morse code for “I love you.”  Jesus, how embarrassing.  Hopefully the boy siting next to him didn’t know morse code.  
  
    Nico did not know morse code.  What he did know is that Valdez, the most annoying person on earth, had landed him in detention for five weeks.  He had never even been asked to talk to a teacher before, never had a note sent home, and had DEFINITELY never been given a detention.  His father was going to kill him when he found out—and then, when his father found out the reason, he would go kill Valdez.    
  
    Nico peeked over at Valdez, and looked away immediately when he saw the other boy staring at him.  Unashamedly.  Nico felt himself blush.  He made a point of turning to face the windows, which was a mistake, because now Valdez was trying to make eye contact with him.  He seemed to be mouthing something, but Nico, who had never been great at lip reading, had no idea what.    
  
    “Valdez!” came the sharp cry from the front of the room.  “No trying to contact your partner in crime!”  
      
    Nico and Leo both whipped their heads back to the front of the room and stared straight ahead.  It wasn’t long before Leo began tapping again.  That kid couldn’t sit still.  
  
    “Valdez!  What are you doing!”  
      
    Valdez pointed to his mouth.  Ms. Dodds rolled her eyes.  “No, you may not speak.  Stop that ridiculous tapping.”  The tapping stopped, but now Valdez was rocking back and forth to a beat only he seemed to hear, and seemed to be tracing tic-tac-toe patterns on his desk.  It was Nico’s turn to stare unabashedly.  A tic seemed to be developing in Ms. Dodds’s eye, and it was massive, because Nico could see it from several rows away.  Ms. Dodds walked over to the desks, and rapped firmly on Leo’s.  “Stop that at once!” she barked.  “This is detention, boy, not a dance party!”  
  
    Valdez stopped, glared at her, and then began blinking very, very fast.  Ms. Dodds took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring.  Nico tried not to wet his pants.  That teacher was terrifying.    
  
    “I need coffee,” she snapped finally and strode swiftly from the room.  Valdez stopped blinking immediately, and turned to grin at Nico.  
  
    “How long do you thin she’ll stay out?”  Valdez asked.  Nico glared at him.  Valdez looked at him.  Nico glared harder.  Valdez looked at him.  Nico was starting to wonder why Valdez had not shriveled under his gaze.  Valdez wriggled his eyebrows.  Nico blushed instantly.  Valdez grinned, and Nico looked away.  
  
    “So how long till she comes back?” Valdez asked again.  Nico almost started glaring again, but remembering how Leo didn’t shrivel under his high power gaze, he decided it might not be such a good idea.  
  
    “We aren’t supposed to talk, you idiot.”  
  
    “Hey, she’s out of the room.  We have complete freedom.”  
  
    “We have detention.  Together.  For the next.  Five.  Weeks.  That is NOT complete freedom.”  
  
    Valdez laughed.  “We’re as free as we can get in detention, my boy.  Free as we can get.”  
  
    Nico smiled in spite of himself.  Valdez looked pleased.  
  
    “So I’ve been wondering—why didn’t you talk to me before today?  ‘Cause with all those little things I’ve been leaving in your bag, you would think—”  
  
    “What do you mean?  What little things you’ve been leaving in my bag?”  
  
    Before Valdez could answer, there was the sound of clicking heels from the hallway.  Both boys swiveled back to face the front, and Nico was left trying to puzzle out the mystery of what Valdez had been leaving in his bag.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so it's been almost a month since I updated and I'm really, really, really sorry (especially to secretsinger I'm really glad you like it). I had most of the chapter written but was stuck on the end, and then it was December and I have no idea how that happened so fast. The ending is kind of iffy but I hope you enjoy anyway.
> 
> Also there is this one part where Leo is texting Piper. The texts go bottom earliest to top most recent, and it could be sort of confusing, and the bold part is who it is from and when, not part of the message.

Hazel looked up as Nico came out onto the steps at the front of the school.  Leo was talking his ear off, as always.  Hazel had started waiting on the steps for him with Piper, who was always waiting for also.  Maybe it was a bad idea to wait in the chilly October air for so long, but this way she had an excuse to talk to Piper, and that was worth it.  
  
"Let's go," Nico said when he saw Hazel.  "I have a lot of homework left."  It was their silent code phrase for, "get me away from this idiot."  Hazel rolled her eyes and stood.    
  
"Persephone is picking us up," Hazel said.  "Dad is working."  
  
"Yeah, I know," Nico said.  "Come on, I see her car."  He didn't wait for Hazel, instead taking off at a fast stride.  Leo really must have been annoying, because Hazel had to jog to catch up.  
  
He was waiting for her at the entrance.  
  
"Her car isn't here."  
  
"Of course it isn't. I'm just so so so sick of Valdez."  
  
"He isn't that bad, Nico.  He is really nice when you get to know him!"  
  
"Really nice?  Hazel, he is the most annoying person on the face of the planet, and I have been stuck in detention with him for the past two weeks!  I am so glad that tomorrow is Saturday."  
Nico was craning his neck, looking for their stepmother's car.    
  
"Nico, I think that he is terrified of you.  He is terrified of Frank, and Frank is annoyed by Leo to no end," Hazel said.  She was getting slightly impatient with her brother.  So Leo was annoying, and could be rude, but he was her friend and had yelled at a sophomore who had made fun of her in the lunch room earlier that day.  While Nico had done nothing.  (To be fair to Nico, Hazel was pretty sure he hadn't been there.  But still.)  
  
"Why would Valdez be terrified of me?" Nico asked.  He had stopped looking for Persephone's car and was squinting at Hazel the way he always did when he was confused.  "He never gets freaked out when I glare at him."  
  
"It might help if you stopped calling him Valdez.  He asked me why you never call him Leo."  
  
"I don't--oh look! That's Persephone!"  Nico started jumping up and down and waving furiously.  Hazel laughed, her anger evaporating. A desperate Nico was always something to see.  
  
"I call shotgun," Hazel said, opening the passenger door when Persephone pulled over.  "You can get in the back."  Nico rolled his eyes and tossed his bag onto the back seat.  He didn’t care, really, since he thought riding shotgun was stupid.    
  
“Let’s get out of here,” Nico said from the back seat.  “I’m tired.”  
  
They began to drive away.  
  
  
  
  
“I can’t believe it!” Leo said.  “I really can’t!  He lied!  The two of them are just waiting for the car to show up!”  
  
“I know, Leo,” Piper said.  She couldn’t help being pissed at Nico for lying to Leo.  And blatantly lying, too.  How hard could it be for him to wait with the two of them for his stepmother to show up?     
  
“I am sick of seriously-cute-Nico di Angelo,” Leo said.  
  
“You are???” Piper asked.  “Why?  What happened?  What did he do?  Do you want me to punch him?”    
  
Leo sighed.  “He’s just being an asshole.  He never calls me anything but Valdez.  And he laughs at my terrible jokes then acts ashamed of me in front of his sister, who happens to be my friend.  He talks to me in Geometry when no one else has arrived, but glares at me in class.  And he’s probably straight.”  
  
“Why do you still like him?” Piper asked.  They had begun to walk towards the other exit to the yard—not the one that Nico and Hazel were still standing at.  Leo buried his face in his hands and groaned.  
  
“I don’t know!  He’s so mean to me sometimes, but then he is so nice, and he is so so so cute, and hot, and I…urg.  Why do I like him?”  
  
“That was my question, sweetie.  You need to eat ice cream and watch bad movies.   Only way you will feel better.”  
  
“Mm.  Maybe you’re right,” Leo said.  “Can we change the subject?  Please?”  
  
“Sure.  What do you want to talk about?” Piper said.  Leo turned to grin evilly at her, and she felt her stomach sink.  He wiggled his eyebrows and said, “You and Hazel.  You absolutely must tell me what is going on with you.”  
  
After fruitlessly trying to get Leo to understand that no, she did NOT like Hazel, Piper was more than ready for bad movies and ice cream.  Leo ran to the freezer to get the New York Super Fudge Chunk, and Piper closed the curtains in the TV room and turned out the lights.  She put on Spy, which was the terrible sort of movie that she loved.  Leo ran in with the ice cream and sat down beside her, passing her a spoon.  The movie began.  
  
They finished four and a half cartons of ice cream and six movies.  (Halfway through the fifth carton of ice cream, Mitchell came into the living room and told them not to eat anymore lest they make themselves sick, so there was no more ice cream that evening.  And then he turned off the TV.)  By then, though, the two were so thoroughly sick of Ben and Jerry’s that they were almost ready to switch to Haagen-Dazs.  Almost.  After Mitchell left the room, they lay down on the carpet of the living room, all alone, since everyone else had already gone to bed.  
  
“I feel so sick,” Leo said, hand on his stomach.  “I will never be able to eat ice cream again.”  
  
“Don’t say the dreaded words,” Piper mumbled.  “I can’t hear them without feeling nauseous.”    
  
“Why did we eat so much?”  
  
“To drown our problems in bad movies and ice cream.”  
  
Leo groaned, and Piper silently agreed.  Drowning problems in ice cream only created more problems.  Like nausea.  And sugar overload.  And an inability to eat ice cream.  
  
“So what is going on with you and Hazel?” Leo asked.  “I know you say there is nothing, but me and Frank are positive that she likes you.”  
  
“Frank?  Frank is positive that she likes me?”  
  
“Yes.  He’s been remarkably friendly to me ever since last Monday.”  
  
“He has?  I haven’t noticed.”  
  
Leo laughed, then said, “Because you and Hazel have been too busy staring at each other!”  Piper sighed.  Leo had a point for once in his life.  She and Hazel did spend a lot of time together, and they did talk a lot, and they did often sneak peeks at each other.  But that was just ordinary friendly behavior! …right?  She remembered something Hazel had told her to do.  
  
“Hazel wanted me to thank you for standing up for her in the lunch room today,” Piper said.  “She told me to tell you that she was really freaked out by it and you made her feel better.”  
Piper could almost sense the heat radiating off of Leo’s face.  No matter how much he pretended to like attention and praise, she knew that it also embarrassed him, deep down.   Predictably, he tried to wave it off.  “It was nothing.  Hazel’s a sweetheart, she didn’t deserve that guy insulting her for falling over.”  
  
“That’s true.  But it was still nice of you, and she appreciated it.”  
  
  
  
  
  
It was Monday, and Nico was wishing that he could have relived Sunday.  Jason and Reyna were continuing their argument of Greece verses Rome.  Nico had, in fact, been the one to start it, by saying that he had always liked the Greek myths.  Jason and Reyna had quickly disagreed and said the Roman ones were better because they were more grounded in fact, but Nico soon got Jason to his side by saying that the Greek myths were gayer and had better stories anyway. And then Reyna had brought up the Ancient Roman government, and Nico didn’t care anymore.  He was too busy trying to figure out why his bag now seemed to be full of metal.  
  
“What do you think, Nico?” Reyna asked.  Nico blinked at her, confused.  “Was Greek art or Roman art better?”  
  
“Greek art.  It evolved a hell of a lot more, and they were really good at it.  The Romans learned most of their stuff from the Greeks anyway, so if you are going to say that the Romans were better then you have to admit that they had a great teacher.”  
  
“Sure, they had a great teacher, but still.  The Romans really made the art their own.  And they had a much more impressive military.”  
  
“That’s true, but the Greeks were smarter.  They had Archimedes.”  
  
Reyna and Jason both stared at Nico.  Jason’s sandwich was halfway to his mouth and he looked as shocked as he had when Nico had randomly told them that he was gay two years before.  Reyna spoke first.  
  
“When did you hear about Archimedes?  That’s the thing that our geek Jason would care about, not you.”    
  
Nico blushed.  He had, in fact, learned about Archimedes from Valdez on the second day of detention when Ms. Dodds had stopped observing them for the really old detention teacher Silenus, who fell asleep the moment he entered the room.    
  
“Valdez told me,” he mumbled, his cheeks burning.  “He got mad at me when he found out that I didn’t know who he was, and instantly went over everything about Archimedes that he could think of.”  The next day, not long after math class, Nico had realized just how heavy his bag was.  “And he sounded interesting so I looked it up at home.”  
  
Reyna frowned.  “Valdez is the idiot who got you five weeks worth of detention?  The one you’ve been complaining about for the past two weeks? I’ve never paid attention before, but the name sounds really familiar.  Where is he?”  
  
“He’s at the table with Percy, Annabeth, Hazel, and Rachel.  And Frank.  He’s the one who looks like an elf.”  
  
Reyna stood up and pretended to stretch, all the while scanning the cafeteria.  Then she sat down.  
“I know him,” she said wonderingly.  “I went to school with him once.  It was second grade, and he built a lego warship that wrecked the house I was making.  It flew!  The lego warship flew—and it was built by a second grader!  I beat him up for that and we both were sent to the principal’s office.  I never forgave him for wrecking my house.”  
  
Jason laughed.  “That’s just like you, Reyna, to not forgive a second grader who wrecked your house.”  
  
“I spent a week on that house!  A whole week!  And he came along and wrecked it!”  
  
Nico started laughing too.  Jason was right, it was just like Reyna to not forgive someone after eight years for wrecking her lego house.  Reyna crossed her arms and glared at the two of them.  “I hate you both,” she muttered darkly.  “I really do.”  
  
“No, you don’t,” Jason said.  “You love us.”  
  
“I’m going to ask him if he remembers that,” Nico said thoughtfully, his heavy bag forgotten.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When Nico walked into the detention room that afternoon, Valdez wasn’t there.  He arrived just before Silenus walked in.  Valdez took one look at Nico, who was sitting at an old fashioned double desk with the other chair left empty, and went straight to the opposite side of the room.  He sat down and glared at Nico.  
  
Nico was stunned.  Valdez hadn’t spoken to him in Geometry that day, but they hadn’t arrived early and there had been no time to do so.  And Valdez was surprisingly good at glaring.  
  
Two could play this game.  Nico got over his initial shock and glared back.  The other boy didn’t flinch.  Instead he tightened his jaw and jutted out his chin slightly, daring Nico to continue glaring.  Nico dared.  
  
This was the scene that met Silenus when he entered the room: two boys standing fifteen feet apart, chairs tipped over, glaring at each other with their arms crossed.  They didn’t seem to be doing anything but glaring.  Silenus grumbled, knowing that a scene like this meant he had to interfere.  He didn’t want to interfere, didn’t want to interfere at all.  But clearly he had to, since this would quickly get out of hand if he didn’t do something.  Silenus clapped his hands.  
  
Nico froze.  He had noticed Silenus entering the room, but he hadn’t expected the old man to interfere.  
  
“Both of you.  Sit down.  Now.”  It was a tone that boded no argument, and it was even more convincing than the one that Ms. Dodds liked to use.  Nico and Leo both tuned away from each other and scrambled for a seat.  Silenus walked to the desk, his work done.  He sat down and put his feet up, and in five minutes he had started to snore.  
  
Nico waited another five, just to be safe, then jumped up from his seat and ran over to Valdez.    
“Valdez,” he said.  “What’s up?”  Valdez didn’t move.    
  
“Valdez!” Nico said again.  Valdez still didn’t respond.  Nico sighed and pulled out the chair next to him and sat down.  “Valdez!  What’s up?”  
  
Valdez was still not responding,  He was staring straight ahead, not moving, though Nico was sure he could hear a foot tapping under the table.  
  
“Valdez?  Why won’t you answer me?”  
  
Valdez’s head snapped around to face Nico.    
  
“My name,” he said angrily, “is Leo.”  
  
Nico blinked, and he thought back to what Hazel had said on Friday about him scaring Valdez—sorry, Leo—and that the boy was really nice when one got to know him.  For the first time, Nico felt bad for treating the other boy so horribly.  
  
“Right.  Leo.  What’s up?”  
  
“I’m wondering why you are such an asshole.”  
  
Nico opened his mouth to say that he wasn’t “such an asshole” thank you very much, but then he closed it.  Because Valdez—Leo—was right.  Nico was being an asshole.  And Leo always looked really hurt for a moment when Nico said something nasty, but then he would perk right back up to his annoying self.  “I…what do you mean?” Nico asked, feigning innocence.  Leo rolled his eyes.  
  
“Well, let’s see.  You talk to me, and laugh at my jokes, and are perfectly nice when we are in detention.  And then you go to Hazel and complain about me nonstop.  You smile at me in here and scowl at me in class.  I know you complain about me to your friends, too.  And I’m nice to you!  I like you a lot, Nico, and you through it all back in my face!” Leo had started quietly and almost sarcastically, but by the end his voice had risen and there were tears in his eyes.  Leo stood suddenly, doing his best to wipe the tears out of  his eyes without Nico noticing.  Then he ran out of the room.  
  
Silenus didn’t wake up.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Piper was having a very enjoyable discussion with Hazel about Harry Potter when her phone buzzed with the specific vibrate she had for Leo.  She yanked it out of her back pocket as fast as she could, and hadn’t even unlocked it when Leo texted her three more times.

 

  
**Leo                    now**  
  
please piper  
  
**Leo                    now**  
  
im in the boys bathroom acros frm thentrance  
  
**Leo                    now**  
  
im sirius piper  
  
**Leo                    1 minute ago**  
  
piper come qwik i need you

  
Piper’s stomach dropped.  Leo was in trouble.  Nico had done something, or said something, or Leo was sick.  Whatever the problem, he needed her.  
  
“What is it?” Hazel asked.  “You look like you’re going to puke.”  
  
“Leo’s upset.  I have to go.”  
  
“I’m coming too.”  
  
The two girls jumped up and ran inside the school.  Piper charged straight to the boy’s bathroom, Hazel right behind her.  Piper felt a rush of gratitude for the other girl, that she’d go into the boy’s bathroom to help Leo, someone she had only met a month ago.  
,  
“Leo!” Piper yelled.  Leo was standing at a sink, crying.  Piper had never seen him this upset before, and she liked to think that she knew him better than anyone.  “Leo, what’s wrong?”  She walked over to him and put her arm around his shoulders.  Hazel walked to his other side and put her arm around his shoulders.  Leo tried to smile, and instead cried harder.  
  
“Oh my god.  Who hurt you?”  
  
“Nico’s being an asshole,“ Leo said.  He sniffed and wiped his eyes.  “And then I accidentally told him that I liked him.  And I feel like an idiot because I really shouldn’t like him if he treats me so rudely, and he’s such an asshole, and I can’t deal with it anymore.”  
  
Hazel’s eyebrows shot up.  “You like Nico?”  
  
Leo let out a wail.  “Yes and now I’ve told him and I’m such an idiot and—“  
  
“Leo.  What exactly did you say?”  
  
Leo sniffed.  “I said I like you a lot.  And accused him of being an asshole.”  
  
Hazel let out a low chuckle.  “Nico won’t notice, I promise.  He may not have heard that, and if he did, he’s too oblivious to figure out what you mean.  I love my brother, but he is clueless when it comes to people’s feelings.”  
  
Leo made a noise that was half laugh, half cry.  “I’ve figured that out by now.  But he came over to talk to me!  He said, ‘What’s up?’  He acted like he wanted to talk to me!”  
  
“Oh, Leo…” Piper tightened her grip around his shoulders.  “I’m sure he wanted to talk to you but didn’t know how to do it nicely.”  
  
“All I can say is that I’m glad someone finally told him he’s being an asshole.  He always makes it sound like you are the one who wants to talk to him, but clearly that isn’t true.”  
  
Leo snorted, and wiped his eyes.  “He talks to me.  And he laughs at my jokes.”  
  
“I’m going to kill him,” Hazel muttered.  “He’s been lying to me all week.”  
  
“I’ll kill him first,” Piper said.  “He was mean to Leo.”  She looked over at Hazel.  “I’m going to take him home.  Could you tell the teacher running the show that he threw up and had to leave?”  
  
Hazel nodded.  “Sure.  And I get to kill Nico, he is my brother.”  
  
Leo snorted softly, and Hazel was glad that he seemed to be feeling better.  “I get to kill him,” Leo said.  “He’s being an asshole to me, not to either of you.  Anyway.  It’s okay.”  
  
Before Hazel could say, “No! It’s not!” Leo had left the bathroom, Piper right beside him.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Nico felt awful as he and Hazel climbed into his dad’s car.  Leo had run out of the room crying, and ten minutes later Hazel comes into the room to wake Silenus and tell him that Leo was sick and had to leave.  Hazel had picked up Leo’s backpack and left with it, clearly planning to return it to Leo and Piper, and Nico was alone.  
  
How had he gotten there, doing a detention he didn’t deserve because he tried to help Leo two weeks ago?  It was all Valdez’s fault.  Why shouldn’t Nico be mean to Valdez?  The guy was annoying, and dumb, and deserved the five weeks of detention way more than Nico did.  Even though Valdez actually had three months worth, and he was being blamed for something he hadn’t done.  
  
There was another part of him that was saying that the thing with Valdez—WHATever it was—was partly Nico’s fault as well.  Leo was friendly and clever and really very smart, and funny and sort of cute—woah, where did that come from? Valdez was most definitely NOT cute—but the point was, he didn’t deserve Nico to be an asshole to him.  Nico couldn’t be nice in detention and then complain out of it.  
  
And Nico hadn’t even asked him about Reyna and the stupid lego house.  
  
“Nico? Are you okay?” Hazel asked.  Nico grumbled and lay down between his and Leo’s bags.  Leo and Piper had left too fast for Hazel to catch them, so Hazel had decided to bring the bag home.  “Nico?” Hazel asked softly.  He could almost hear her wrinkling her forehead in worry.  
  
“I think I caught what Leo had,” Nico mumbled.  Hazel snorted.  “Piper thinks he has strep,” she said, “and unless you were making out with him in that classroom, you can’t have gotten it.”  
  
Nico sat bolt upright, and the car turned, sending him careening into Hazel.  “I was most definitely not!” he shouted.  “Positively, definitely, absolutely not!”  
  
“You know, that makes it sound even more like you were,” Hazel said.  Nico looked at her sideways, expecting her to smile at him, but she was still frowning.  He could see her expression in the window.  
  
“Why were you lying to me?” Hazel said suddenly.  “About finding Leo annoying.  Why were you lying?”  
  
“I wasn’t,” Nico said.  “He is annoying.”  
  
“Yet you still talk to him in detention, a thing that would get you even more detention if you got caught.”  
  
“You aren’t allowed to get more detention!” Nico’s father Hades said from the front of the car.  “No more talking in it, either!  Detention is not to be taken lightly!”  
  
“And this conversation isn’t meant to be held in your hearing,” Nico said low enough that his dad couldn't catch it.  “Yes, Father,” he said louder.  “I won’t talk anymore.”  Then he lay back down and proceeded to ignore every question Hazel asked him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments and kudos, they mean the world to me. Also, if anyone has an idea of what the chapter title should be, let me know in the comments section. Chapter titles are fun, but I'm more than a little stumped on what it should be.


	6. Locked In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Leo!” Nico said urgently. “Leo, wake up!” Leo groaned again and stretched, his arm hitting Nico’s face. Nico was freaking out to much to care.
> 
> “Wake up!”
> 
> “Ismup. Wassampanin.”
> 
> “We’re locked in.”
> 
> “Lo—WHAT?”
> 
> “We’re locked in!”

Leo got to detention first. He sat down at the desk they always sat at, and put his backpack—which Nico had returned to him in Geometry—on the chair next to him. See what Nico made of that. 

And yeah, Leo had decided to call Nico Nico the night before, when Piper had sat him down and explained to him that always calling him seriously cute would make it harder to think about him as a normal person. 

Nico walked in, spotted Leo, waved dramatically, then walked to Leo’s desk and—OHNOWHATTHEFUCKINGHELLWASTHISIDIOTTHINKING—pulled Leo’s backpack off the chair.

“Thanks for saving me a seat!” Nico said. He put his head on his desk and looked at Leo. “My backpack is soooo heavy. You have no idea. I’m exhausted from carrying it all day.”

Leo suddenly remembered the Archimedes Sphere he’d given to Nico a couple weeks ago. Hadn’t he found that? Along with the skull, and the GrimReaper sign, and the helicopters and airplanes and all the stupid little trinkets that Leo made for him in math class? He must of! “He may not have heard that, and if he did, he’s too oblivious to figure out what you mean. I love my brother, but he is clueless when it comes to people’s feelings.” Hazel’s words came trickling into Leo’s mind, and he wondered if Nico’s obliviousness could extend to his surroundings as well.

“Have you tried, perhaps, emptying your bag?” Leo said. Nico rolled his eyes, which looked very strange when his head was sideways.

“You sound like my stepmother. She is always telling me that I have too much stuff in my bag. Then her mother comes and tells me that she wants me to work on her farm. Then my dad comes along and tells everyone to get out of his house,” Nico said. He looked as though he was about to say more, but Silenus chose that moment to come in and Nico sat up and stopped talking.

Silenus sat down at the teacher’s desk and glared at Leo. “You left early yesterday,” Silenus said. He swayed slightly.”

“I…I threw up,” Leo said, at the same time Nico said, “He had strep throat.”

Silenus narrowed his eyes. “Well, which is it? Strep throat or throwing up?”

“I…ah…my…my sister decided it was strep throat…cause I threw up and that’s a symptom of strep?”

“You have a sister?” Nico asked while Silenus stood up, saying, “Is there a doctor’s note? If it was strep what are you doing here now? You were lying weren’t you? I’ll-you’ll see what-I don’t-liars aren’t tolerated—” Silenus swayed again, then a third time, then fell over backwards onto his chair and promptly began to snore.

Leo turned to look at Nico and froze. He had never quite realized just how close to the other boy he was. If he wanted to, he could kiss Nico’s ear without moving more than an inch. He smiled slightly at that thought. 

Nico turned to look at Leo, and started laughing. Without missing a beat, Leo also started laughing. He saw Silenus’s prone form and remembered why, exactly, he was supposed to be laughing, which made him laugh harder. Tears were streaming from his eyes before he finally calmed down.

“Oh my god…” Nico said. “That was hilarious. That was even better than the time that Jason sat down on a chair and it broke immediately. It was an old one, and the look on his face was priceless. But this…THIS!” Nico waved his arms at Silenus before starting to laugh again. “This was too good.”

“Jason broke a chair by sitting down on it?” Leo asked, trying to picture the sorta-hot-but-not-as-good-looking-as-Nico blond breaking a chair.

“Yup. He sat down, and the back of the chair half-exploded. And then Aunt Hera yelled at him for a full two hours. It’s now a running joke between us: whenever he’s mad at me, or anyone, I say chair and he remembers that nothing can be as bad as breaking that stupid chair.”

Leo laughed slightly. Nico was lying on his desk again and playing with his hair and it was really really really distracting.

“Sooooooooo…you have a sister?” Nico asked.

“Well…technically, I have…just a minute…” Silena, Lacey, Drew, Piper, Mitchell…that’s five, but Mitchell is a boy “four foster sisters and one foster brother. At the moment. I can’t tell you how many I’ve had in the past because I managed to block them all from my memory. I was talking about Piper. She’s my foster sister, my blood sister, my best friend, and my platonic soul mate. Only the best person you’ll ever meet.” Leo smirked, remembering her saying that to him when he first met her. 

“What do you mean, blood sister?” Nico asked. He’d stopped playing with his hair and was instead turning a skull ring he wore around on his finger. Since when had Nico had a skull ring?

“You know that thing kids do where they prick their fingers and mix their blood together? Me and Piper did that over the summer, when we were so high on ice cream we thought it would be fun to try her dad’s tequila, and then our drunk selves decided it would be a good idea to cut our thumbs with knives and mix our blood together.” Leo blushed and showed Nico the shaky scar near his thumb. “We were really drunk, so the scars were all out of wack. Thank god for Silena and Mitchell, who managed to wrap us with bandages before—well, before grown ups entered the scene. So that is how we became blood siblings.”

Nico laughed. He had stopped playing with his ring and was just staring at Leo, eyes half lidded,almost dreamy. “I’m surprised you weren’t forced to leave the foster home,” he said. 

Leo snorted. “Her dad would never do that. He loves me way too much, ever since I fixed his car when it broke down on the highway. And he never found out.”

“That’s cool. How mad do you think Silenus will be if I fall asleep?”

“Not super mad. He’d be a real hypocrite if he gets pissed.”

Nico smiled slightly, then closed his eyes. Leo waited, wondering what he would say next. And he waited. And waited. And then waited some more. 

“Nico?” Leo asked when he knew he couldn’t wait a second longer. “Nico, are you alright?” Nico’s response was a slight, gentle snore.

Fuck. Nico hadn’t been gazing dreamily into Leo’s. He’d been about to fall asleep. And then he had fallen asleep. Probably because Leo was just that boring. Leo put his head on the desk, and before he knew it, he was asleep too.

 

 

“You don’t know how to sword fight?” Hazel asked, aghast. The two were at Hazel’s house, in the living room with the pretense of doing homework. Hazel had told Piper that it was cold and raining and she really didn’t want to wait two hours for Nico and Leo to leave detention on the school steps, but if she wanted to Piper was more then welcome to join Hazel at Hazel’s house. “How? I thought everyone knew how to sword fight!”

“I’d probably be terrible at it,” Piper said. “I have no coordination when it comes to sports. I ski, and snowboard, and surf, but that’s not the same.”

“Sword fighting isn’t a sport, it’s an art! Here, let me show you!” Hazel jumped up from her couch and pulled a ruler from the bag between her feet. ‘Watch and learn, my dear friend, watch and learn.” 

Piper watched in awe as Hazel began to wave the ruler around, fighting off imaginary opponents. She was jumping back and forth, then sometimes running forward to stab at the air, and spinning. At one point she even hopped up on the coffee table. The whole thing looked like an impromptu bizzaro ballet sort of thing, as Leo would put it. Hazel stopped when Piper fell off the couch laughing.

“What?” Hazel said indignantly. “What’s so funny?”

“Are you,” Piper began, then laughed even harder. “Are” laugh “you sure” laugh “that’s what sword fighting looks like?”

“Well, I’ve never taken a lesson or anything, but that’s how it always looks in movies!” Hazel said. “Here, you try it.”

Piper stood, accepting the ruler that Hazel offered. She bowed low. “I accept this offer you bestow on my, Your Majesty.” Hazel giggled.

Piper stepped forward, feeling slightly ridiculous at the sound of the ruler swishing through the air. “On guard!” Piper yelled, lunging forward, and nearly fell over the coffee table. “Back off, you nasty fiend.” Behind her, Piper could hear Hazel gasping with laughter. Piper grinned too. This was fun. She spun around and pretended to fend off blow after blow, backing up against a wall. “I will defeat you!” Piper jumped forward and began to swipe the blade back and forth, advancing with each swipe. “I am winning, Your Majesty!” Piper tried to do the fancy jump-kick-spin thing that was almost certainly in every spy movie ever made—tried being the key word. Instead, she accidentally let go of her sword, sending it flying onto a chair. She then did trip on the coffee table, doing a belly flop on it before rolling over onto the floor.

“Piper! Are you okay?” Hazel shouted. Piper groaned. Hazel’s face appeared, her brow creased in worry. “Are you okay?” Hazel asked again.

“I’m not dead yet,” Piper mumbled. “I’m getting better. I feel fine.”

“Oh, you do? That’s great!”

Piper blinked up at Hazel. She hadn’t gotten the reference! She hadn’t gotten it!

“Piper? Can you stand?” 

Piper wordlessly accepted Hazel’s hand up. “You okay?” Hazel asked again. “That was hilarious, until you fell. Not exactly ‘The Princess Bride,’ though.”

“I—‘The Princess Bride’? You like ‘The Princess Bride’?” 

Hazel rolled her eyes and went to grab the ruler. “It’s Nico’s favorite movie,” she said. 

“Nico’s favorite movie is ‘The Princess Bride’?”

“Yeah? Why do you sound so shocked?” Hazel walked back to the couch and put her ruler away before sitting down. Piper followed. “Haven’t you ever seen ‘The Princess Bride’?” 

“No,” Piper muttered. She sat down next to Hazel. “Silena tried to get me to watch it, years ago. I thought it was boring. Buttercup was stupid.”

“But-but-but-the sword fights! The drama! The jokes!”

“Nope. Didn’t care. But if you want hilarity, you really should see Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” Piper said. Hazel looked at her, and asked the dreaded question: “What’s that?”

“Oh my God,” Piper said. “You have so much to learn.”

 

 

The room was dark when Nico woke up. Leo was sleeping next to him, mouth half open and—ew, was he drooling?!? Nico jerked his head upright so he was no longer facing the sleeping Leo and looked around the room.

Silenus had left, and the door—which was normally open during detention—was closed. It was dark outside, too, which meant it had to be late. Really late. Trying to fight the panic welling in his chest, Nico jumped out of his chair and ran to the door. It was locked. He ran back to the desk and gave Leo a shove. Leo groaned but didn’t wake up.

“Leo!” Nico said urgently. “Leo, wake up!” Leo groaned again and stretched, his arm hitting Nico’s face. Nico was freaking out to much to care.

“Wake up!”

“Ismup. Wassampanin.”

“We’re locked in.”

“Lo—WHAT?”

“We’re locked in!” 

Leo jumped out of his chair, knocking it over and almost knocking Nico over as well. He ran to the door and pulled on the handle, the way Nico had done.

“I tried that already!”

Leo nodded and ran back to his bag. He opened it and began tossing things out, one of his notebooks nearly hitting Nico. Nico backed up. His lunch came flying out, and then a folded cloth thing that he picked up and raised triumphantly. 

“Aha!” Leo cried. He ran back to the door, crouched down, and took out a long metal thing. Nico walked to the door as well and looked over Leo’s shoulder. It was a screwdriver. Leo began turning it on one of the screws. 

“Is it working?” Nico asked excitedly.

“I don’t know. It’s so fucking dark. I can’t see a thing.”

Nico rolled his eyes and turned on the lights.

“There! Thanks,” Leo said. He looked at the door, and—

“FUCK!”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s the wrong screwdriver!”

There could be wrong screwdrivers? That seemed highly unrealistic. How could there be more than one screwdriver? Why would someone want more than one screwdriver?

“There’s more than one type of screwdriver?”

Leo glared at Nico, probably wondering what kind of imbecile didn’t know there was more than one type of screwdriver. “Of course there is. It’s just that I only use Phillips head, so I never bothered getting a flat head.” Leo sat back on his heels and glared at the door before scrambling to his feet. He walked back to the desk and slumped in his chair. Nico followed. 

“I guess we’re stuck here,” Nico said, because he couldn’t think of anything else.

“Yeah,” Leo mumbled. “I guess we are.”

“We should probably do our homework.”

That got the expected reaction. Leo jerked upright and said, “Hell no!”

“So what should we do?” Nico said, sitting down.

“We should….” Leo got a scary look in his eyes that Nico didn’t like. At all. “We should play twenty questions. That’s what people always do in fan fiction.”

“You read fan fiction?”

“I’m going to ignore how disdainful you sound. Do you want to go first?”

“Ummm…gimmee a sec…I’m thinking of an object.”

“No. That’s not how you play!”

“That is too.”

“No, it’s not. It’s like, we each get to ask each other twenty questions. And we have to answer truthfully or not at all. We should play.”

That didn’t sound all that fun to Nico. He didn’t want to know things about Leo, and he definitely didn’t want Leo to know things about him. “We should not.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Pink,” Nico said automatically.

“WHAT? Your favorite color is PINK? Of all the fucking colors to choose from, you choose PINK?” Leo’s expression would have been comical if this had been any other time. His eyes were literally bugging out of his head, and his mouth was wide open. Nico’s face turned pink.

“Yes. I like pink. Got a problem with that?”

“Not a bit. You ask.”

 

 

“See you tomorrow, Hazel!” Piper called. “I’ll practice all those weird move things you showed me!”

Piper began to walk home. It was late, almost seven o’clock. She’d stayed at Hazel’s house far longer than she’d meant to. They had looked up sword fighting moves to practice, watched bits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, finished all their homework, and then ordered pizza. Leo would probably be mad at her for not dropping by to walk home from detention.

Her phone rang. It was the Star Wars theme song—her dad. She stopped walking and pulled it out of her pocket.

“Dad?” she said. “What is it?”

“Piper! Where are you?”

“I’m walking home from Hazel’s house. Didn’t I tell you I was going there?”

“No, young lady, you did not!”   
Shit.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m coming straight home.” Piper started walking again, faster this time. “I already ate.”   
“What about Leo?”

“Leo? Isn’t he back yet?”

“No!”

“Oh my god. Oh my god, where is he?”

“I don’t know, Piper! He hasn’t picked up his phone! I’ve been calling him for hours!”

“I’m coming straight home, Dad, I swear. Bye!”

Piper hung up her phone and began to run, her bag pounding against her back. Her house was at least a mile away. She began to run faster, wincing as her backpack kept hitting her back. Where was Leo? Had Nico done something to him? Piper knew it was a bad thing that he had gone right back to detention with that asshole after yesterday. 

Thinking of that asshole, where was he? Where was Nico? Had something happened at the school? Nico really should have returned by now. Ages ago, in fact. Had something happened to them both? Had they been kidnapped?

Piper turned around and ran back to Hazel’s house.

 

 

Leo and Nico had not been kidnapped. They were both still at the school, in the detention room, sitting on the floor at the front of the classroom, mouths pressed together.

The only thing Nico had done to Leo was kiss him.

It may be better to go back an hour. 

“You’ve been in ten homes?” Nico sounded incredulous. 

“This is my tenth.”

“Dude. That’s rough.”

“Yeah.”

“Um,” Nico said, looking down at his hands. “Can I ask…uh…why?”

They had long moved past exchanging questions, and were now in the realm of divulging life stories. They had ditched the desks to recline on the floor at about the same time. 

“My mom. She died just after my eight birthday, in a machine shop fire.” Leo swallowed. It still hurt to talk about, all these years later. “Some drunk white assholes had gotten mad at her because—because—they didn’t like the way she’d fixed their car or something. They came and—and theysettheshoponfire. I couldn’t do anything.” Leo let a tear fall. His hands were clenched into fists, the nails digging into his skin. Beside him, Nico winced in sympathy and—took Leo’s hand. Leo froze. Nico was holding his hand. 

“When I was nine, my mother.” Nico swallowed as well. He was still holding Leo’s hand. “You remember the Hotel Casino disaster?”

“Yeah.” It had been all over national news. A brand-spanking-new hotel collapsing, killing fifty and injuring over a hundred. 

“Yeah. Well. I was there. 

“My mom. She was one of the ones killed. My sister—my full-blooded sister—was put in a wheel chair. I was okay.”

“Shit,” Leo said, squeezing Nico’s hand. Beside him, Nico stiffened slightly.

“Fast forward two years, my sister is fifteen and I’m eleven. She runs off with her girlfriend and no one has heard from her or seen her since.”

“Shit.”

Nico took a shuddering breath, then another, then another. “Yeah. ‘Shit’ is right. She had to have made serious plans to run off and leave—she was in a wheelchair! A fucking wheelchair!” Nico leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. “Can we talk about something else now?”

“Please,” Leo said. He thought frantically for another, much less depressing subject. “What’re your friends like?”

“They’re good.” Nico swallowed and let go of Leo’s hand. “Oh. Yeah. I’ve been wondering.”

“What?”

“Did you know Reyna when you were in elementary school?”

“Did I—what?”

“Did you know Reyna in elementary school,” Nico said impatiently. “Second grade. She says that she knew you, and remembers you building a flying lego warship and smashing a house she built.”

“A flying—what?” Leo started to laugh. “A flying lego warship that I smashed a house with? I don’t remember that.”

“She says you beat her up over it and you both got sent to the principal’s office.”

“Beat me up—oh! I do remember that! Wow. I’d forgotten all about that.”

“The warship really flew?”

Leo laughed again. “It did, actually, but I think that’s cause I threw it. Like, I throw the warship and destroy the ship and her house in one go. Then she beat me up.”

Nico laughed too. Then Leo laughed harder, then Nico laughed harder, and they ended up lying on the floor, facing each other, laughing.

“It’s my turn for a question, right?” Leo said, letting out a final chuckle. 

“Mmm. Yeah.” Nico pulled himself together, his hair spilling across his face. “Shoot.”

“Have you ever kissed anyone?”

“Excuse me?”

Leo flushed. Why had he asked this question again? Probably because his stupid brain thought it would be a good idea. “Have you ever…uh…kissed anyone,” Leo mumbled, his face turning even redder. He had whispered the last two words.

“I. Um.” Nico’s face was also red, which made Leo feel a little better. A little. “I. Um. Yeah. I—I kissed—I kissed Percy.” Nico swallowed. “Um. Two years ago.” He was also whispering.

He’d kissed Percy? “Isn’t Percy your cousin?”

“Yeah. It was before he was dating Annabeth. Actually, it was because we kissed that he got up the courage to say yes when she asked him out.”

“I’m not going to point out that he needed courage to say yes.”

“Don’t. Me, Jason, Rachel, and Hazel teased him endlessly about it.”

“What was it like?”

“Gross. I mean, like you said, Percy is my cousin. It was on a dare.” Nico brushed some of the hair out of his eyes, and his voice lowered even more. “We could try it. You know.”

Holy. Holy fucking mother of God. Jesus Christ. This was not happening. Wake up. Wake up Leo.

This was happening. “Try it?” Leo squeaked out. 

“Uh-I-I mean-only-uh…”

“We could,” Leo said immediately. “I mean. I’m—curious?”

“Okay. Okay okay okay,” Nico said. “SO. Should we just—”

Leo squeezed his eyes shut, waiting. A nose bumped into his, and both he and Nico giggled nervously. Leo opened his eyes. Nico’s eyes were two inches from his. They were all Leo could see.

It worked better that time, with their eyes open. Nico brushed his lips against Leo and Leo leaned forward involuntarily, slamming his nose into Nico’s cheekbone. 

Well. Slightly better.

“Ah…” Leo said. “Maybe. Maybe we should be sitting up?”

Nico nodded and they both sat up and pressed against the wall. Nico leaned in again. 

Nico’s lips were soft and warm. Leo leaned into the kiss, his eyes closing, but making sure not to lean too much so he didn’t slam his nose into Nico’s face again. 

It was over as fast as it had started. Nico leaned back, his eyes wide. “That,” he whispered, “that was better than Percy.” He fidgeted slightly, looking away, before meeting Leo’s eyes again and speaking even quieter. “Can we try again?”

 

 

“I can’t believe you,” Piper said. “First, you go to school with your phone at ten percent; then you nap for so long in detention that you are forgotten about; then you end up making out with the boy you’ve had a crush on since the first day of school.”

“Well,” Leo said. “When you put it like that. It is pretty unbelievable.” They were in Piper’s room, a plate of cookies between them. Because the last time they had eaten ice cream they had emptied the freezer, Piper and Leo were stuck with Oreos. Oreos weren’t Ben and Jerry’s, but it was better than celery sticks and that was the other option. 

“I can’t believe you,” Piper said again. She had called her dad from Hazel’s house and explained that she and Hazel were positive that Nico and Leo were still in detention and that was why neither had shown up at home. Her dad had called the school, the school hadn’t picked up, her dad had tried again, and again, and again, finally finding the right number. Long story short, it wasn’t until nine o’clock when Nico and Leo had finally gotten out of detention. Nico was given a free pass from the rest of his detention, and Leo was also given a free pass for the three weeks it would take the school to find a new detention master. Then he had to suffer the rest of his punishment. Alone.

“I’m gonna head to bed,” Leo said, standing. He yawned. “Wanna be fresh for my boyfriend in the morning.”

“You’re dating?” Piper really hoped that was the case, for Leo’s sake, but. But but but. She still didn’t trust Nico. He’d been an asshole to Leo far too often in the past, and she really didn’t want to get involved in their shit. 

“We did kiss. A lot. So does that mean we’re dating?”

“No,” Piper said, standing as well. “It doesn’t. So just—just be careful, okay?”

“Yeah,” Leo said, “of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry the wait was so long...but I had a huge case of writer's block...and then I finally knew what to write but actually had to write it...so yeah. Hope you enjoyed, please leave comments and kudos if you did!
> 
> Oh yeah--the reason for Leo only using phillips head screwdrivers is that apparently it is loads easier to use without looking. Also, I can imagine Leo being a real snob about which screwdriver to use pretty easily.


End file.
